بصل
“بصل” (басаль) — onion in Arabic. Noun, level A2, topic — food and drink. A short everyday word: no sauce begins without it. Cutting it is yaqṭaʿ al-basal, and the kitchen tears are the same in every language. In a live sentence: “بصل كبير من فضلك” — A big onion, please. Written with the characters ب, ص, ل. One of 177 words in the set “food and drink” in the Arabic course.
In short
| Written in Arabic | بصل |
| Read in Latin letters | басаль |
| Translation | onion |
| Part of speech | noun |
| Level | A2 |
Why it looks that way
A short everyday word: no sauce begins without it. Cutting it is yaqṭaʿ al-basal, and the kitchen tears are the same in every language
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.
- بصل كبير من فضلكбасаль кябир мин фадликA big onion, please
Nearby words: food and drink
A menu, a market, a shop sign, the question “what is this?”. Food is the most frequent subject of the first weeks and the safest excuse to start talking.
- قهوةкахваcoffeeCoffee is one of the oldest Arabic loans in English: qahwa left Arabia with the Ottoman caravan and reached the coffeehouses of Europe. In Arabic the word is feminine
- شايшайteaCame from Chinese by way of Persian — the overland cousin of the same word English picked up at sea. In the cafe they will ask: with sugar?
- ماءмаʾwaterThe hamza on the end is a vowel break: maa-ʾ. In a cafe tap water comes free for the asking — you only have to ask
- خبزхубзbreadThe flat round loaf baked for every table. Khubz is bread in general and the shop loaf at once
- طعامтаʿаамfoodThe t is emphatic — the tongue pulled back, the sound heavy. It stands first on the menu and on the shop sign
- حليبхалибmilkThe h is the breathy throat one (ح), not the scraping kh: a breath out of the throat. Tea with milk is shay bi-haliib
- جبنةджибнаcheeseThe ta marbuta on the end reads simply "a". Arab cheese is most often white and salty, from sheep milk
- لحمляхмmeatLahm is meat and muscle: the body is described in the same word as the dinner
- سمكсамакfishRead short and loud: samak. On the coast the fish is fresh every day, and this word is first on the menu
- سلطةсалатаsaladThe root is salt — the same family as the English word, which made its own round trip through Europe. The ta marbuta on the end
Test yourself
Five questions from the same set — “food and drink”. Recalling a spelling from meaning is harder than knowing a familiar word on sight, and therefore more useful.
- How do you say “onion” in Arabic?
A short everyday word: no sauce begins without it. Cutting it is yaqṭaʿ al-basal, and the kitchen tears are the same in every language
- How do you say “cheese” in Arabic?
The ta marbuta on the end reads simply "a". Arab cheese is most often white and salty, from sheep milk
- How do you say “water” in Arabic?
The hamza on the end is a vowel break: maa-ʾ. In a cafe tap water comes free for the asking — you only have to ask
- How do you say “salad” in Arabic?
The root is salt — the same family as the English word, which made its own round trip through Europe. The ta marbuta on the end
- How do you say “milk” in Arabic?
The h is the breathy throat one (ح), not the scraping kh: a breath out of the throat. Tea with milk is shay bi-haliib
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 “onion” in Arabic?
«بصل», read “басаль”. In a live sentence: “بصل كبير من فضلك” — A big onion, please. Noun, level A2, from the set “food and drink”; written with the characters ب, ص, ل.
How is “بصل” written in Latin letters?
басаль. 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?
A short everyday word: no sauce begins without it. Cutting it is yaqṭaʿ al-basal, and the kitchen tears are the same in every language. A word with a story stays in memory longer than a “spelling — translation” pair: memory holds on to meaning, not to a string.