Amharic Keyboard Online

How phonetic typing works

Type how the word sounds, in English letters, and each syllable becomes its fidel letter. Six rules cover nearly everything:

1. 1.

   A consonant on its own gives the bare letter

   b→ብs→ስn→ን

2. 2.

   Add a vowel for the other six forms

   be→በbu→ቡbi→ቢba→ባbie→ቤbo→ቦ

3. 3.

   Capitals for the sharp, throaty sounds

   T→ጥCh→ጭP→ጵS→ጽ

4. 4.

   Two letters for sounds English spells that way

   sh→ሽch→ችny→ኝzh→ዥ

5. 5.

   A vowel at the start of a word

   a→አe→እi→ኢo→ኦu→ኡ

6. 6.

   The -wa forms: second form plus a

   kua→ኳgua→ጓqua→ቋ

Words to try

• selamሰላም
• eshiእሺ
• bunaቡና
• bietቤት
• qonjoቆንጆ
• kuasኳስ
• amesegnalehuአመሰግናለሁ
• ityoPyaኢትዮጵያ

Common questions

Do I need to install anything?

No. It works in the browser on a phone or a computer, with nothing to download. Copy your text and paste it into Facebook, Telegram, an email or a Word document.

Why did I get በት instead of ቤት?

The fifth form, the “ay” sound, is typed with ie: biet gives ቤት, while bet reads as በ plus ት. The same goes for lie ሌ, mie ሜ and the rest.

How do I type ጠ, ጨ, ጰ and ጸ?

With capital letters: Te ጠ, Che ጨ, Pe ጰ, Se ጸ. Lower case gives the softer twin: te ተ, che ቸ.

How do I type ። and ፣?

Tap them on the keyboard above — the row under the letters holds all eight Ethiopic marks, from the full stop ። and comma ፣ to the word separator ፡. The punctuation keys on your own keyboard still type the English marks, so ? and ! work as usual.

How do I type Amharic on my phone without this page?

Install Gboard, Google's keyboard app for Android and iPhone, and add Amharic in its language settings. On a Windows computer, go to Settings, then Time & language, then Language & region, and add Amharic: Windows has an Amharic keyboard built in.

Can I learn the letters here?

The Ethiopian alphabet chart shows every letter with its sound, and the typing test drills the ones you keep missing.