مرفق
“مرفق” (мирфак) — elbow in Arabic. Noun, level A2. One word for both the elbow and the support: on one's elbows is mirfaʿayn. At the table an elbow on the cloth is bad manners; an elbow on the railing is tiredness. In a live sentence: “المرفق على الطاولة” — The elbow is on the table. Written with the characters م, ر, ف, ق. A word from the everyday Arabic course, level A2.
In short
| Written in Arabic | مرفق |
| Read in Latin letters | мирфак |
| Translation | elbow |
| Part of speech | noun |
| Level | A2 |
Why it looks that way
One word for both the elbow and the support: on one's elbows is mirfaʿayn. At the table an elbow on the cloth is bad manners; an elbow on the railing is tiredness
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.
- المرفق على الطاولةаль-мирфак аля ат-таавилаThe elbow is on the table
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 “elbow” in Arabic?
«مرفق», read “мирфак”. In a live sentence: “المرفق على الطاولة” — The elbow is on the table. Noun, level A2; written with the characters م, ر, ف, ق.
How is “مرفق” written in Latin letters?
мирфак. 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?
One word for both the elbow and the support: on one's elbows is mirfaʿayn. At the table an elbow on the cloth is bad manners; an elbow on the railing is tiredness. A word with a story stays in memory longer than a “spelling — translation” pair: memory holds on to meaning, not to a string.