Qalbi (قلبي) means my heart
It's qalb, heart, with the -i on the end that means my. You hear it in songs and in ya qalbi, said to someone you love.
qalbi is qalb, “heart”, with the -i that means “my”. Written with a shadda on the last letter, قَلْبِيّ, the same letters spell the adjective “cardiac”, which is the one a dictionary lists. See qalb, heart →
The word, broken down.
قَلْبي 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 plain 'b'. A tooth-shaped body with one dot below.
A 'y', or a long 'i' vowel when it carries no vowel of its own.
What does qalbi mean in Arabizi?
qalbi is how you write قَلْبي in Arabizi, the Arabic chat alphabet. It means “my heart”. 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 — 6 key presses. Diacritics sit on the Shift keys. The on-screen keyboard on this site highlights each key as you go.
Want the keys under your fingers first? The mixed session on our Arabic typing practice page runs through words from every set.
Open the typing practice →- 01R→ق
- 02Shift+Q→ـَfatḥa
- 03G→ل
- 04Shift+X→ـْ
- 05F→ب
- 06D→ي
Getting the sounds right.
QAL-bi, with the stress up front. The q is the hard part: it's ق, made further back in the throat than an English k, like a k you swallow. In Egypt and the Levant most people say it as a glottal stop instead, albi, and in the Gulf it comes out as a g, galbi. The l and b run straight into each other with no vowel between them.
Example sentences.
Sentences using قَلْبي, with diacritics so the rhythm is unambiguous.
Heart, my heart, your heart.
The ending says whose heart. Here's qalbi next to the rest:
Arabic hangs “my”, “your” and “his” on the end of the noun instead of putting a word in front. The same -i turns 7abib into 7abibi, “my darling”, and 3umr into 3umri, “my life”. All three turn up in the same songs.
Questions about قَلْبي.
How do you write qalbi in Arabic?
Qalbi in Arabic is قلبي: the letters ق, ل, ب and ي, read right to left. With the vowel marks it's قَلْبي. Add a shadda to the last letter, قَلْبِيّ, and the same four letters spell the adjective “cardiac” instead.
What does qalbi mean?
My heart. The word for heart is qalb (قَلْب), and the -i ending is the Arabic way of saying “my”. The same ending turns 7abib into 7abibi, my darling, and 3umr into 3umri, my life.
What does ya qalbi mean?
Oh my heart. Ya (يا) is the word you put in front of a name or a term of endearment when you talk to someone, so ya qalbi is what you call a person you love. People also say it in sympathy, the way English says “oh, you poor thing”.
Is it qalbi or kalbi?
Qalbi, with ق. Kalbi, with ك, is a different word: my dog. In Egypt and the Levant the ق often comes out as a glottal stop, so you'll hear albi, and in the Gulf it sounds like galbi. It's still written قلبي.
This word is one of the site’s own additions to the list: it is too common in everyday speech to leave out, and the subtitle corpus does not rank it. More on the acknowledgements page.