Enter english characters in the text box and the corresponding Tigrinya characters show above.
In general a single Tigrinya character came from a consonant - vowel pair.
This short tutorial will show you the basic patterns.

1. Vowels - type h and notice that you get the unvoiced character then type e and notice that instead of getting a second character it simply upgrades the character to the character 'he'. Similarly, type hu, hi, ha, hie, ho to see all the different vowel types that can be combined with a lone consonant like h. This is the basic pattern, you can type a consonant all alone, but when you can follow it with any of the single vowels, or the double vowel 'ie' it upgrades to a single Tigrinya character.
2. Case does not matter for the vowels - for example 'he' gives the same result as 'hE'
3. But case DOES matter for SOME consonants. For example 'h' and 'H' are different. 'k' & 'K' etc.
4. For some consonants case does NOT matter. 'm' and 'M' give the same character.
5. There are also exactly 3 doubled character consonants - hh, ss, & SS. And of course you can use any of the customary vowels with these doubles - hhe, SSie, sso, ssu ...
6. There are also 5 extra classes that you get by appending u to any of k,K,q,Q,g(or G which is the same). Once you have appended 'u' to one of those consonants, you may type any of the vowels to go with it. So for example - kua,kui,kuie,Kue,Kuie,Qua,gua,ed
7. There are two vowel classes that you get to without using a consonant first. You get to these using 'a' and 'A'. For example type 'ae, aa, au, ai, aie, ao, Aie, Ae
8. Some vowel combination are not valid, for example 'kio'. The k was valid and is displayed, When you follow with 'i' it upgrades, but when you follow with 'o', That 'o' is not a valid starting character so the letter 'o' is just passed to the output unchanged.
9. Other characters such as punctuation and number are passed through unchanged.
10. The backspace key will allow you to back up and make changes.
11. However the arrow keys do not matter. This is not a word processor. You can't move back into the middle of a long passage and make an internal change. All you can do is backspace and re-type if you detect a mistake way back
12. There is no 'SAVE' function for your typing, but phrases that you type here can be copied and pasted into Word or Notepad. (you may need to set the font for Notepad.)
13. Lastly, this html page is self-contained javascript. If you save a copy of this html page, you can open it and use it locally to type your phrases with no need to be connected to the internet.
14. Download the typing chart to help you input the characters!
15. So download this program to your desktop and Enjoy!