آداب
“آداب” (adab) — a polite greeting in Urdu. Interjection, level A0, topic — greetings and goodbyes. The bookish good day with no religious tint — how one greets elders and city strangers. The answer is the same aadab back. In a live sentence: “آداب، صاحب!” — Hello, sir! Written with the characters آ, د, ا, ب. One of 9 words in the set “greetings and goodbyes” in the Urdu course.
In short
| Written in Urdu | آداب |
| Read in Latin letters | adab |
| Translation | a polite greeting |
| Part of speech | interjection |
| Level | A0 |
Why it looks that way
The bookish good day with no religious tint — how one greets elders and city strangers. The answer is the same aadab back
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.
- آداب، صاحب!adab, sahib!Hello, sir!
Nearby words: greetings and goodbyes
Every conversation starts here, and so does every first impression: say hello in the local language and you stop being a stranger in about a second.
- سلامsalamhellothe stress stays flat and the middle vowel short: sa-lam, not sa-laam
- صبح بخیرsub bekhairgood morningLiterally "morning [be] good". Wishes are built as time word + bakhair, and the answer is expected in the same shape: bakhair — "good"
- خدا حافظkhuda hafizgoodbyeLiterally "God [be your] keeper": may God guard you. The friendlier phir milenge — see you — lives next door and is heard just as often
- کیا حال ہے؟kya hal hai?how are you?Literally "what [is your] state?". Haal — state — is the same word you met in subah bakhair. The verb is closes the line
- میں ٹھیک ہوںmain thik hunI am fineLiterally "I well-am": the little is glues onto the end of the line, where English keeps a separate word. The full answer: main theek hoon, shukriya
- پھر ملتے ہیںphir milte hainsee youLiterally "later we-meet": the verb stands at the very end of the line. The most common friendly parting between one’s own
- شام بخیرsham bekhairgood eveningLiterally "evening [be] good" — the same shape as subah bakhair. Shaam is the evening, and evening here starts at noon
- شب بخیرshab bekhairgood nightLiterally "night [be] good" — the third wish of the family. Said at bedtime and when parting late in the evening
Test yourself
Five questions from the same set — “greetings and goodbyes”. Recalling a spelling from meaning is harder than knowing a familiar word on sight, and therefore more useful.
- How do you say “a polite greeting” in Urdu?
The bookish good day with no religious tint — how one greets elders and city strangers. The answer is the same aadab back
- How do you say “good evening” in Urdu?
Literally "evening [be] good" — the same shape as subah bakhair. Shaam is the evening, and evening here starts at noon
- How do you say “I am fine” in Urdu?
Literally "I well-am": the little is glues onto the end of the line, where English keeps a separate word. The full answer: main theek hoon, shukriya
- How do you say “goodbye” in Urdu?
Literally "God [be your] keeper": may God guard you. The friendlier phir milenge — see you — lives next door and is heard just as often
- How do you say “hello” in Urdu?
The one hello for every occasion — the very word that greets you across the whole region. Fits any time of day, to friends and strangers alike
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 “a polite greeting” in Urdu?
«آداب», read “adab”. In a live sentence: “آداب، صاحب!” — Hello, sir! Interjection, level A0, from the set “greetings and goodbyes”; written with the characters آ, د, ا, ب.
How is “آداب” written in Latin letters?
adab. 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?
The bookish good day with no religious tint — how one greets elders and city strangers. The answer is the same aadab back. A word with a story stays in memory longer than a “spelling — translation” pair: memory holds on to meaning, not to a string.