الكنيسة قرب الفندق.

In Arabic, the verb to be is usually not expressed in the present tense.

So:

• الكنيسة قرب الفندق = The church is near the hotel

There is no separate word for is here. This is very normal in Arabic.

If you wanted a past meaning, then Arabic would use a verb, for example:

• كانت الكنيسة قرب الفندق = The church was near the hotel

Word by word:

• الكنيسة = the church
• قرب = near / close to
• الفندق = the hotel

So the whole sentence means:

• The church is near the hotel

This is a nominal sentence in Arabic, called جملة اسمية.

It begins with a noun:

• الكنيسة = the topic / subject-like part

Then it gives information about it:

• قرب الفندق = near the hotel

So the structure is roughly:

• [noun] + [location phrase]

This is a very common pattern in Arabic for simple present-tense statements.

Because both nouns are definite:

• الكنيسة = the church
• الفندق = the hotel

The prefix الـ means the.

So the sentence is talking about a specific church and a specific hotel, not just any church or any hotel.

Compare:

• كنيسة قرب فندق = a church near a hotel
• الكنيسة قرب الفندق = the church near the hotel / the church is near the hotel

It behaves a lot like a preposition in sentences like this, and learners often translate it as near.

More precisely, قرب is originally a noun meaning something like nearness or closeness, but in many everyday sentences it functions like a location word: near / close to.

So in practice, for a learner, it is perfectly fine to understand:

• قرب الفندق = near the hotel

A useful comparison:

• فوق = above
• تحت = below
• أمام = in front of
• خلف = behind
• قرب = near

Because قرب needs something after it to say near what.

So:

• قرب الفندق = near the hotel

The second noun tells you the reference point.

This is similar to English:

• near
  • the hotel

Arabic just puts the same idea into its own structure:

• قرب
  • الفندق

In fully vocalized formal Arabic, this sentence would usually be written as:

• ٱلْكَنِيسَةُ قُرْبَ ٱلْفُنْدُقِ

The endings are:

• الكنيسةُ — nominative, because it is the main noun of the sentence
• قربَ — accusative as an adverbial expression of place
• الفندقِ — genitive after قرب

However, in normal Arabic writing, these short vowels are usually omitted, so you commonly see:

• الكنيسة قرب الفندق

And in paused pronunciation, the endings are often not heard clearly anyway.

A simple pronunciation guide is:

• al-kaniisatu qurb al-funduqi
  (with full grammatical endings)

In everyday paused pronunciation, it often sounds closer to:

• al-kaniisa qurb al-funduq

A few notes:

• كنيسة has a long ii sound: ka-nii-sa
• ق in قرب is the MSA q sound
• فندق is funduq, not fanduq

The ـة is called taa marbuuTa (تاء مربوطة). It often marks a noun as feminine.

So:

• كنيسة is a feminine noun

That is just part of the word itself; it is not a separate word or suffix meaning the.

When the word is indefinite, you get:

• كنيسة = a church

When you add الـ:

• الكنيسة = the church

Yes, but then the meaning changes.

• الكنيسة قرب الفندق = The church is near the hotel
• الفندق قرب الكنيسة = The hotel is near the church

Both are grammatically fine. The first noun is the thing you are talking about.

So the word order matters because it changes which place is presented as the subject/topic.

Yes. That is another very common way to express the same idea.

• الكنيسة قرب الفندق
• الكنيسة قريبة من الفندق

Both mean:

• The church is near the hotel

The difference is structural:

• قرب الفندق uses قرب as a location expression
• قريبة من الفندق uses the adjective قريبة (near) plus من (to/from, here effectively to in the sense of nearness)

Both are natural, and learners should recognize both patterns.

Yes. This is perfectly good Modern Standard Arabic.

It is short, clear, and natural. It is the kind of sentence you might see in:

• textbook examples
• maps or directions
• simple descriptions of location

So it is a very useful model sentence for learning how Arabic expresses location in the present tense.