How to say "where" in Arabic
CognateMeaningwhere
Arabic · Modern Standard Arabic
aynaאין
أين
Hebrew · Modern Hebrew
eifoإِيفُو
How the two words are related
Same Semitic root, same meaning — you already know this word.
Modern Hebrew's everyday 'where' is אֵיפֹה, an unrelated word — but the classical directional forms survive: מֵאַיִן ('from where', as in Genesis's מֵאַיִן בָּאתָ) and the everyday לְאָן ('to where') both carry the old ʾayn-/ʾān- element that is exactly Arabic أين, ayna. (Careful: biblical אַיִן, 'where', is a different word from the modern negator אֵין, 'there is not' — same letters unvocalized, different vowels, different job.)
Related Hebrew word:מֵאַיִן / לְאָןme'ayin / le'anمِئَايِين / لِئَان
Learn it
On the street
How people actually say it in the spoken dialects, where it differs from the standard word.
Egyptian · Cairo and the Nile Delta
Cairo's where is fēn.
Moroccan · Morocco — Casablanca, Rabat, Fes
Darija's where is fīn.
In a phrase
Where is the bathroom?