دائیں
“دائیں” (dain) — right in Urdu. Adverb, level A0, topic — asking the way. The nasal sign closes it: daayein escapes through the nose. Its partner baayein — left — differs by one opening letter; listen to the start. In a live sentence: “دائیں جائیں” — Turn right. Written with the characters د, ا, ی, ں. One of 18 words in the set “asking the way” in the Urdu course.
In short
| Written in Urdu | دائیں |
| Read in Latin letters | dain |
| Translation | right |
| Part of speech | adverb |
| Level | A0 |
Why it looks that way
The nasal sign closes it: daayein escapes through the nose. Its partner baayein — left — differs by one opening letter; listen to the start
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.
- دائیں جائیںdain dzhainTurn right
Nearby words: asking the way
Right, left, straight on, how far. You ask the way rarely — and always at the moment when there is no time to work it out.
- کہاںkahanwhere?The nasal sign closes it: kahaan escapes through the nose. It stands before the verb, and the verb closes the line: station kahaan hai?
- یہاںyahanhereYa-haan — "this place". Its partner wahaan — there — differs by one opening sound: y against w
- وہاںwahanthereThe same haan — place — as in yahaan, only pointing into the distance. "Here" and "over there" are one sound apart
- سیدھاsidhastraightLiterally "straight": seedha is also honest and at once. The same word is said of a person without a cunning bone
- بائیںbainleftThe partner of daayein, opening with b. Road directions are short: seedha, phir daayein — straight, then right
- قریبqaribcloseThe first sound is a q — but deeper, from the throat: with a plain g it would be gareeb, "poor". The opposite is duur, far. To "is it far?" the short qareeb is the best answer
- دورdurfarThe same dur the Persians say: distant. Duur nahin — not far — is the reassuring answer to give a taxi driver
- میں کیسے جاؤں؟main kaise dzhaun?how do I get there?Literally "how do I go?": asked with the verb "to go", which you know. The verb stands at the very end, as always
- رسناrasnato get toTo reach the goal — rasna. Exactly where to is shown by the tail tak: hospital tak — as far as the hospital
- سڑک کے دوسری طرفsadak ke dusri tarafon the other sideLiterally "of road the other side on": taraf — the side, doosra — the other. Possession takes ke again
Test yourself
Five questions from the same set — “asking the way”. Recalling a spelling from meaning is harder than knowing a familiar word on sight, and therefore more useful.
- How do you say “right” in Urdu?
The nasal sign closes it: daayein escapes through the nose. Its partner baayein — left — differs by one opening letter; listen to the start
- How do you say “far” in Urdu?
The same dur the Persians say: distant. Duur nahin — not far — is the reassuring answer to give a taxi driver
- How do you say “there” in Urdu?
The same haan — place — as in yahaan, only pointing into the distance. "Here" and "over there" are one sound apart
- How do you say “on the other side” in Urdu?
Literally "of road the other side on": taraf — the side, doosra — the other. Possession takes ke again
- How do you say “close” in Urdu?
The first sound is a q — but deeper, from the throat: with a plain g it would be gareeb, "poor". The opposite is duur, far. To "is it far?" the short qareeb is the best answer
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 “right” in Urdu?
«دائیں», read “dain”. In a live sentence: “دائیں جائیں” — Turn right. Adverb, level A0, from the set “asking the way”; written with the characters د, ا, ی, ں.
How is “دائیں” written in Latin letters?
dain. 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 nasal sign closes it: daayein escapes through the nose. Its partner baayein — left — differs by one opening letter; listen to the start. A word with a story stays in memory longer than a “spelling — translation” pair: memory holds on to meaning, not to a string.