الفندق
“الفندق” (аль-фундук) — hotel in Arabic. Noun, level A1. The word travelled the Mediterranean: the Spanish fonda — an inn — is its direct descendant. Funduq here is not the nut but the place where one sleeps. In a live sentence: “الفندق قريب من المحطة” — The hotel is close to the station. Written with the characters ا, ل, ف, ن, د, ق. A word from the everyday Arabic course, level A1.
In short
| Written in Arabic | الفندق |
| Read in Latin letters | аль-фундук |
| Translation | hotel |
| Part of speech | noun |
| Level | A1 |
Why it looks that way
The word travelled the Mediterranean: the Spanish fonda — an inn — is its direct descendant. Funduq here is not the nut but the place where one sleeps
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.
- الفندق قريب من المحطةаль-фундук кариб мин аль-махаттаThe hotel is close to the station
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 “hotel” in Arabic?
«الفندق», read “аль-фундук”. In a live sentence: “الفندق قريب من المحطة” — The hotel is close to the station. Noun, level A1; written with the characters ا, ل, ف, ن, د, ق.
How is “الفندق” written in Latin letters?
аль-фундук. 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?
The word travelled the Mediterranean: the Spanish fonda — an inn — is its direct descendant. Funduq here is not the nut but the place where one sleeps. A word with a story stays in memory longer than a “spelling — translation” pair: memory holds on to meaning, not to a string.