qalam alustadha
the professor's penThe word, broken down.
قَلَم اَلْأُسْتاذة reads right to left. Below, each letter in reading order, with its sound and the keys that type it.
A deep 'k', made far back in the throat.
A short 'a', written as a small stroke above the letter.
A plain 'l'. A tall upright stroke with a curved foot.
A short 'a', written as a small stroke above the letter.
A plain 'm'. A small round head with a tail.
A long 'a' vowel. A single upright stroke, and the first letter of the alphabet.
A short 'a', written as a small stroke above the letter.
A plain 'l'. A tall upright stroke with a curved foot.
A glottal stop carried on an alif.
A short 'u', written as a small loop above the letter.
A plain 's'. Three small teeth in a row.
A plain 't'. The same body as bāʾ, but with two dots above.
A long 'a' vowel. A single upright stroke, and the first letter of the alphabet.
The 'th' in 'this'. Like dāl, with one dot above.
The 'tied tāʾ'. It marks a feminine ending, sounded as a soft 'a'.
What does qalam alustadha mean in Arabizi?
qalam alustadha is how you write قَلَم اَلْأُسْتاذة in Arabizi, the Arabic chat alphabet. It means “the professor's pen”. No numbers in this one; it spells out in plain Latin letters.
New to the chat alphabet? See how every letter and number maps: the Arabizi → Arabic guide. Got it the other way round, with Arabic script to convert? That is the Arabic to Arabizi converter.
The keystrokes, in order.
On a standard Arabic 101 / Arabic-PC layout — 18 key presses. Diacritics sit on the Shift keys. The on-screen keyboard on this site highlights each key as you go.
It sits in the jobs & work lesson of our Arabic typing practice course, if you would rather drill it next to the words it turns up with.
Practice typing this word →- 01R→ق
- 02Shift+Q→ـَfatḥa
- 03G→ل
- 04Shift+Q→ـَfatḥa
- 05L→م
- 06Space→
- 07H→ا
- 08Shift+Q→ـَfatḥa
- 09G→ل
- 10Shift+X→ـْ
- 11Shift+H→أ
- 12Shift+E→ـُḍamma
- 13S→س
- 14Shift+X→ـْ
- 15J→ت
- 16H→ا
- 17`→ذ
- 18M→ة