Arabic Words with English Numbers? What Are They?

If you have been studying the Arabic language and have come across Arabic words being written using English letters, you may have noticed the appearance of numbers in the middle of words such as (3afo, 7ajj, 9abaa7). This confuses a lot of non-Arabic speakers who are trying to learn the language, and understandably so. I mean.

As an Arabic language learner, you’re probably already aware of the fact that there are 10 letters in the Arabic alphabet that do not exist in the English alphabet, so when it comes to writing these Arabic letters in English, the use of numbers makes more sense. Why? I’ll explain it to you now…

These are the numbers you may have seen being used to represent Arabic letters or sounds:
2, 3, 3’ 5, 6, 6’, 7, 8, 9, 9’

Each of the above represents a letter from the Arabic letter, some of these numbers even have a slight resemblance to the Arabic letters themselves. So which letters does each number represent? I will also add an example for each to make it easier for you to remember:

If you’re having difficulties with the sounds of the letters, look at the Arabic alphabet interactivity.