لافتة الطريق
“لافتة الطريق” (ляафитат ат-тариик) — a road sign in Arabic. Noun, level A2. Literally "the placard of the road": a laafita is what is raised for the eye to see. The triple t in writing tells "road" from "bird" and "brick" — the letters are almost the same. In a live sentence: “اللافتة تقول: توقف” — The sign says: stop. Written with the characters ل, ا, ف, ت, ة, ا, ل, ط, ر, ي, ق. A word from the everyday Arabic course, level A2.
In short
| Written in Arabic | لافتة الطريق |
| Read in Latin letters | ляафитат ат-тариик |
| Translation | a road sign |
| Part of speech | noun |
| Level | A2 |
Why it looks that way
Literally "the placard of the road": a laafita is what is raised for the eye to see. The triple t in writing tells "road" from "bird" and "brick" — the letters are almost the same
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.
- اللافتة تقول: توقفаль-ляафита такууль: таваффакThe sign says: stop
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 road sign” in Arabic?
«لافتة الطريق», read “ляафитат ат-тариик”. In a live sentence: “اللافتة تقول: توقف” — The sign says: stop. Noun, level A2; written with the characters ل, ا, ف, ت, ة, ا, ل, ط, ر, ي, ق.
How is “لافتة الطريق” written in Latin letters?
ляафитат ат-тариик. 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 "the placard of the road": a laafita is what is raised for the eye to see. The triple t in writing tells "road" from "bird" and "brick" — the letters are almost the same. A word with a story stays in memory longer than a “spelling — translation” pair: memory holds on to meaning, not to a string.