أليس كذلك
“أليس كذلك” (а-ляйса ка-заальк) — is it not so? in Arabic. Particle, level A2. Literally "is it not thus?": it goes at the end and expects agreement — the polite Arabic "isn’t it". In a live sentence: “أليس كذلك؟” — Is it not so? Written with the characters أ, ل, ي, س, ك, ذ, ل, ك. A word from the everyday Arabic course, level A2.
In short
| Written in Arabic | أليس كذلك |
| Read in Latin letters | а-ляйса ка-заальк |
| Translation | is it not so? |
| Part of speech | particle |
| Level | A2 |
Why it looks that way
Literally "is it not thus?": it goes at the end and expects agreement — the polite Arabic "isn’t it"
A word with a story stays in memory longer than one learned as a “spelling — translation” pair: memory holds on to meaning, not to a string.
In a live sentence
A single word almost never appears alone in conversation. A sentence shows where it fits and what stands next to it.
- أليس كذلك؟а-ляйса ка-заальк؟Is it not so?
How not to forget this word
Reading a word and remembering it are different jobs. A day later, little survives of a single reading — and that is not bad memory, that is how memory works.
- This has been tested on foreign words too. The difference shows up most when you test yourself a few days later rather than straight away.checked many timesKim & Webb, 2022, Language Learning 72(2) · 48 experiments, 3,411 participants, 98 comparisons.
- Recalling beats re-reading. Covering the translation and trying to remember it does more than reading it ten more times.checked many timesAdesope, Trevisan & Sundararajan, 2017, Review of Educational Research 87(3) · 188 experiments, 272 comparisons. g = 0.61; against plain re-reading 0.51, against passive review 0.93.
- An answer you worked out yourself sticks better than one handed to you.checked many timesBertsch et al., 2007, Memory & Cognition 35(2) · 86 studies, 445 comparisons, d = 0.40.
Frequently asked
How do you say “is it not so?” in Arabic?
«أليس كذلك», read “а-ляйса ка-заальк”. In a live sentence: “أليس كذلك؟” — Is it not so? Particle, level A2; written with the characters أ, ل, ي, س, ك, ذ, ل, ك.
How is “أليس كذلك” written in Latin letters?
а-ляйса ка-заальк. This is a practical spelling — you need it to read aloud and be understood, not to meet an academic standard.
Why does this word look the way it does?
Literally "is it not thus?": it goes at the end and expects agreement — the polite Arabic "isn’t it". A word with a story stays in memory longer than a “spelling — translation” pair: memory holds on to meaning, not to a string.