TIMED PRACTICE · العربية
Arabic typing speed test
Flow like a stream. Space commits a word, backspace fixes the last one. Tab or Esc restarts.
Testing your Arabic typing speed
Arabic is written in its own script, whose marks combine with base letters into single written units — so one keystroke is not one character on screen. It also runs right to left.
Typing Arabic is not a matter of one key, one character. The Arabic script combines consonants, vowel signs and modifiers into single written clusters, which means you compose a syllable and watch it assemble itself as you go. The Arabic 101 layout maps 31 characters across the standard key positions to make that composing order predictable.
Expect your Arabic speed to lag your English speed for longer than feels reasonable, and expect the reason to be composition rather than key-finding. Each written unit is several presses in a particular order, and it is the order that becomes automatic last.
Not all keys are worth the same. Ten characters carry around 70% of everything you will type in these Arabic drills, and the remaining 21 share what is left. That is why the course introduces its material a little at a time rather than all at once: the early characters do a disproportionate amount of the work.
The speed test and the games draw on one bank of 64 common Arabic words — 31 distinct characters in all, averaging 3.5 written units per word. A test can run for a fixed duration or a fixed number of words, with punctuation and numbers optional. Words are drawn at random each time, so no two runs are the same and there is nothing to memorise. The result reports net speed, accuracy, how steady you were across the run, and the five keys you got wrong most often.
- Writing system
- Arabic
- Keyboard layout
- Arabic 101
- Direction
- right to left
- Mapped characters
- 31
- Practice words
- 64
- Distinct characters
- 31
- Average word
- 3.5 units
Characters that come up most in these Arabic words
- ا37
- ل34
- م18
- ن16
- ي12
- ب9
- ع8
- ك8
- ه8
- أ7
- ر7
- ق7
Counted across the 64 practice words — the ones worth recognising first.
اليد الهادئة تجد صف الارتكاز بسهولة وثقةLetters that change shape as you type them
Arabic letters take different forms depending on where they sit in a word — isolated, initial, medial or final — and most connect to the letter after them. This is handled entirely by the font and the text renderer: you press one key per letter and the shapes resolve themselves as the word builds.
It does mean the character you just typed can visibly change when you type the next one, which is disconcerting at first and is the main reason Arabic typists learn to watch the screen rather than the keys.
Short vowels are normally not written. The diacritics that mark them — harakat — exist and are used in the Qur'an, in poetry and in material for learners, but ordinary Arabic text omits them and readers supply them from context. Typing them requires a modifier and is rarely needed.
The Arabic 101 layout is the common standard. Arabic 102 adds keys for a few characters used in other Arabic-script languages.
Questions about typing in Arabic
Do I need an Arabic keyboard?
No hardware is required — Arabic 101 ships with every major operating system. What does take getting used to is that a key is not a character here: vowel signs and conjunct forms are separate presses that the renderer assembles, so the order you press in matters more than the position you press.
How is typing speed measured here?
In words per minute, where a "word" is a fixed five characters rather than an actual word. That convention is what makes a WPM figure comparable between languages whose real words are very different lengths. The number reported is net WPM: uncorrected mistakes are subtracted, so it reflects text you actually produced correctly.
Why is my Arabic speed lower than my English speed?
Because you are doing two things at once: finding the key and recalling what it writes. Speed in a script you have typed for years is one motion; speed in a new one is a lookup followed by a motion. The lookup is what disappears with practice, and when it does the gap closes faster than most people expect.
Is the Arabic typing test the same every time?
No. Words are drawn at random from the Arabic bank on every run, so there is nothing to memorise and a second attempt is a fresh test rather than a rehearsal. You can fix the duration or the word count, turn punctuation and numbers on, or paste your own text.
Which Arabic keyboard layout do these tests use?
Arabic 101, with 31 characters mapped across the standard key positions. Arabic runs right to left, which both the practice text and the cursor respect. The 64 practice words between them use 31 distinct characters. The keyboard guide below the typing area shows the physical key and the character it produces together, so you are never reading a layout diagram in one window while typing in another.
What will I actually be typing in Arabic?
64 of the most common words in Arabic, drawn at random. They use 31 distinct characters between them and average 3.5 written units each, with the longest running to about 7. Short, frequent words are used on purpose: they are the ones your hands will meet most often outside a lesson, so the practice transfers.
Is Arabic hard to type?
Harder than a one-key-one-letter language, and for a specific reason rather than a vague one: marks combine, so a written unit takes several presses in a fixed order. The bank here averages 3.5 units per word with a fairly compact inventory of 31 characters across the practice bank. The keystroke count is higher than the visible length suggests, which is what makes early progress feel slower than it is.
Do I need an account, and is it free?
Neither. There is no paid tier and no required sign-in — the 64 Arabic practice words, the speed test and all three games are the whole product, available immediately. Signing in is worth it only if you practise on more than one device.
Also in Arabic: lessons and typing games.
Other languages written in Arabic: Kurdish (Sorani), Pashto, Persian (Farsi), Urdu.
Other languages whose letters combine as you type: Assamese, Bengali. Or browse all 86 by writing system.
Further reading
- Typing the Arabic script: one alphabet, five keyboardsOne script, five layouts. What Persian, Urdu, Pashto and Kurdish each change, why a letter changes shape after you type it, and which of it transfers.
- Typing in a second scriptIf you already touch type, your hands transfer completely and your recall does not. What that gap feels like, why it closes, and how to shorten it.
- What touch typing isTouch typing means typing without looking, using all ten fingers from a fixed home position. What it is, why it works, and what it is not.