مقهى
“مقهى” (махка) — cafe in Arabic. Noun, level A0, topic — at a café and a restaurant. You have met maqhaa as "coffeehouse": one word covers cafe and coffeehouse alike. The coffee itself is qahwa — the word English borrowed. In a live sentence: “أشرب القهوة في المقهى” — I drink coffee at the cafe. Written with the characters م, ق, ه, ى. One of 9 words in the set “at a café and a restaurant” in the Arabic course.
In short
| Written in Arabic | مقهى |
| Read in Latin letters | махка |
| Translation | cafe |
| Part of speech | noun |
| Level | A0 |
Why it looks that way
You have met maqhaa as "coffeehouse": one word covers cafe and coffeehouse alike. The coffee itself is qahwa — the word English borrowed
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.
- أشرب القهوة في المقهىашраб аль-кахва фи аль-махкаI drink coffee at the cafe
Nearby words: at a café and a restaurant
Order, ask the price, ask for the bill. A short and entirely predictable conversation — a convenient place to test yourself for the first time.
- 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?
- أريدуридI wantAfter it the noun comes with no preposition: urid qahwa — I want coffee. The polite request is built like this: urid… min fadlik
- مطعمматʿамrestaurantFrom the root "to eat": matʿam is literally "a place of eating". The same root as taʿaam — food
- مقهىмахкаcoffeehouseBuilt on qahwa. Sitting for hours over one cup is the norm here, not an abuse of it
- الحساب من فضلكаль-хисааб мин фадликthe bill, pleaseHisaab is the cafe bill, the bank account and any reckoning: one word for everything that comes down to figures
- بيرةбираbeerIn half the Arab countries it is simply not sold. Where it is, they say bira — the same word that crossed from the Germanic languages into many others
- نبيذнабизwineA word from the wine-growing lands: in Lebanon and Tunisia it is poured in every restaurant. Where it is not sold, asking for it is not done
Test yourself
Five questions from the same set — “at a café and a restaurant”. Recalling a spelling from meaning is harder than knowing a familiar word on sight, and therefore more useful.
- How do you say “cafe” in Arabic?
You have met maqhaa as "coffeehouse": one word covers cafe and coffeehouse alike. The coffee itself is qahwa — the word English borrowed
- How do you say “beer” in Arabic?
In half the Arab countries it is simply not sold. Where it is, they say bira — the same word that crossed from the Germanic languages into many others
- How do you say “coffeehouse” in Arabic?
Built on qahwa. Sitting for hours over one cup is the norm here, not an abuse of it
- How do you say “I want” in Arabic?
After it the noun comes with no preposition: urid qahwa — I want coffee. The polite request is built like this: urid… min fadlik
- How do you say “coffee” in Arabic?
Coffee 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
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 “cafe” in Arabic?
«مقهى», read “махка”. In a live sentence: “أشرب القهوة في المقهى” — I drink coffee at the cafe. Noun, level A0, from the set “at a café and a restaurant”; written with the characters م, ق, ه, ى.
How is “مقهى” written in Latin letters?
махка. 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?
You have met maqhaa as "coffeehouse": one word covers cafe and coffeehouse alike. The coffee itself is qahwa — the word English borrowed. A word with a story stays in memory longer than a “spelling — translation” pair: memory holds on to meaning, not to a string.