Tools/Arabic to IPA
Arabic to IPA converter
Convert Modern Standard Arabic text to IPA phonetic transcription. See the IPA, hear the word, and turn it into review-ready flashcards — without leaving what you are reading.
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Arabic in IPA
12 worked examples, each chosen for a sound the spelling hides.
hello — pharyngeal ح
thank you — the final -an is tanwīn
book — long ā from the alif
friend — emphatic ص plus uvular ق
road — emphatic ط
light — emphatic ض ending in a hamza
shade — emphatic ظ, doubled l
eye, spring — the ʿayn itself
right, truth — ح and a doubled ق
bread — velar خ
room — voiced غ
moon — uvular ق, not /k/
Arabic sounds to know
The symbols that come up most often in Arabic transcription, and what each one actually asks your mouth to do.
| Letter | Example | IPA | What it does |
|---|---|---|---|
| ص | صديق | /sˤ/ | Emphatic s: the back of the tongue retracts toward the pharynx, which also darkens the vowels around it. |
| ض | ضوء | /dˤ/ | Emphatic d. Arabic is called لغة الضاد, the language of the ḍād, because the sound is so rare across languages. |
| ط | طريق | /tˤ/ | Emphatic t, and unaspirated where the plain ت is not. |
| ظ | ظل | /ðˤ/ | Emphatic ð. Many dialects merge it with ض, but MSA keeps them apart. |
| ح | حق | /ħ/ | A voiceless pharyngeal fricative — a tight constriction low in the throat, not the English h. |
| ع | عين | /ʕ/ | The voiced pharyngeal. English has nothing like it, and leaving it out changes the word. |
| ق | قمر | /q/ | A uvular stop, made further back than /k/. Contrasts with ك: قلب is heart, كلب is dog. |
| خ | خبز | /x/ | A voiceless velar fricative, the ch of German Bach. |
| غ | غرفة | /ɣ/ | The voiced partner of خ, close to a French r. |
| ء (hamza) | ضوء | /ʔ/ | A full consonant in Arabic, not a pause: the catch in the middle of English uh-oh. |
| ث | ثلاثة | /θ/ | The th of English think. Many dialects replace it with /t/ or /s/, but MSA keeps it. |
| ذ | ذهب | /ð/ | The th of English this — the voiced counterpart of ث. |
| ا, و, ي (long vowels) | كتاب | /aː/ | Length is phonemic: MSA has three short and three long vowels, and the pair distinguishes words. |
How Arabic writing maps to sound
Arabic writes consonants and long vowels; the short vowels are diacritics (tashkeel) that appear in the Qur’an, in poetry and in children’s books, and almost nowhere else. Ordinary text is therefore ambiguous by design — كتب can be kataba, kutiba or kutub — and readers resolve it from grammar and context. IPAtics strips tashkeel before looking a word up, so vocalised and unvocalised spellings give the same result.
Which Arabic do these transcriptions show?
Transcriptions are Modern Standard Arabic (الفصحى), the written and broadcast register. Spoken dialects diverge sharply: Egyptian says ج as /ɡ/ where MSA has /d͡ʒ/, Levantine often turns ق into a glottal stop /ʔ/, and Gulf varieties keep /q/ but shift ك to /t͡ʃ/ in some positions. Learn MSA for reading; expect a dialect for conversation.
Why guess Arabic pronunciation?
Arabic short vowels are usually left unwritten, so the same consonant skeleton can be read several ways. It also has emphatic and pharyngeal consonants with no English counterpart — exactly the sounds IPA was built to record.
From Arabic text to IPA in seconds
Select the text
Highlight Arabic text anywhere — a PDF, a browser, a subtitle, a chat. Or paste it into the free web converter above.
Press Alt+Q
IPAtics detects the language automatically and shows the IPA in a floating overlay, right where you are reading.
Hear it, save it, study it
Play native audio, tap any symbol to learn it, save the word, and generate Anki cards — all in one place.
Frequently asked questions
Transcribe Arabic the fast way
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