حيلة
“حيلة” (хиля) — a trick in Arabic. Noun, level B1. A trick, a wile, a roundabout way. Not every trick is deceit: need without a way out, for Arabic, has a right to a roundabout. In a live sentence: “حيلة ذكية في اللعبة” — A clever trick in the game. Written with the characters ح, ي, ل, ة. A word from the everyday Arabic course, level B1.
In short
| Written in Arabic | حيلة |
| Read in Latin letters | хиля |
| Translation | a trick |
| Part of speech | noun |
| Level | B1 |
Why it looks that way
A trick, a wile, a roundabout way. Not every trick is deceit: need without a way out, for Arabic, has a right to a roundabout
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.
- حيلة ذكية في اللعبةхильа закийя фи аль-луʿбаA clever trick in the game
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 “a trick” in Arabic?
«حيلة», read “хиля”. In a live sentence: “حيلة ذكية في اللعبة” — A clever trick in the game. Noun, level B1; written with the characters ح, ي, ل, ة.
How is “حيلة” written in Latin letters?
хиля. 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 trick, a wile, a roundabout way. Not every trick is deceit: need without a way out, for Arabic, has a right to a roundabout. A word with a story stays in memory longer than a “spelling — translation” pair: memory holds on to meaning, not to a string.