How to say "interview" in Arabic
Shifted meaningMeaninginterview
Arabic · Modern Standard Arabic
muqābalaמקאבלה
مقابلة
Hebrew · Modern Hebrew
re'ayonرِئَايُون
How the two words are related
Same root as a Hebrew word, but the meaning drifted over the centuries.
Arabic root
ق-ب-لHebrew root
ק-ב-לRoot ק-ב-ל, same as קיבל 'to receive, accept' — itself borrowed into Hebrew from Aramaic, from a root meaning 'to be in front of, to face'. Arabic kept that spatial sense alive: qābala is 'to face someone', and a muqābala is exactly that — a face-to-face meeting, a job interview, a news interview.
Related Hebrew word:קיבלkibelكِيبِل
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 says muʾabla, with the qāf as a glottal stop and the middle vowel dropped.
In a phrase
a press interview
Plural
Sound feminine plural -āt.