අපද්රව්ය
“අපද්රව්ය” (apadravya) — waste in Sinhala. Noun, level B1. a-pa-drav-ya; two consonant joints in a row. In a live sentence: “කර්මාන්තශාලාවේ අපද්රව්ය ගඟට යනවා” — The factory's waste goes into the river. You can hear how it sounds right here. Written with the characters අ, ප, ද, ්, ර, ව, ්, ය. A word from the everyday Sinhala course, level B1.
In short
| Written in Sinhala | අපද්රව්ය |
| Read in Latin letters | apadravya |
| Translation | waste |
| Part of speech | noun |
| Level | B1 |
- අපද්රව්යapadravyawaste
How to pronounce it
a-pa-drav-ya; two consonant joints in a row
Why it looks that way
A bookish 'unusable substance': industrial waste, hospital, household. The familiar trash word is the garbage of home and street, and it's far more alive
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.
- කර්මාන්තශාලාවේ අපද්රව්ය ගඟට යනවාkarmāntaśālāvē apadravya gangaṭa yanavāThe factory's waste goes into the river
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 “waste” in Sinhala?
«අපද්රව්ය», read “apadravya”. a-pa-drav-ya; two consonant joints in a row. In a live sentence: “කර්මාන්තශාලාවේ අපද්රව්ය ගඟට යනවා” — The factory's waste goes into the river. You can hear how it sounds right on this page. Noun, level B1; written with the characters අ, ප, ද, ්, ර, ව, ්, ය.
How is “අපද්රව්ය” written in Latin letters?
apadravya. 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 bookish 'unusable substance': industrial waste, hospital, household. The familiar trash word is the garbage of home and street, and it's far more alive. A word with a story stays in memory longer than a “spelling — translation” pair: memory holds on to meaning, not to a string.
Can I hear how it sounds?
Yes, right on this page: click the word and it will play. The sound works on any phone, and nothing needs to be installed.