ہمسایہ
“ہمسایہ” (hamsaya) — next-door in Urdu. Adjective, level A2. Literally "of one shadow": the house is so close the shadow is shared. The neighbor as a person you have met — parosi; hamsaya is said of him and of his house. In a live sentence: “ہمسایہ گھر قریب ہے” — The next-door house is close. Written with the characters ہ, م, س, ا, ی, ہ. A word from the everyday Urdu course, level A2.
In short
| Written in Urdu | ہمسایہ |
| Read in Latin letters | hamsaya |
| Translation | next-door |
| Part of speech | adjective |
| Level | A2 |
Why it looks that way
Literally "of one shadow": the house is so close the shadow is shared. The neighbor as a person you have met — parosi; hamsaya is said of him and of his house
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.
- ہمسایہ گھر قریب ہےhamsaya ghar qarib haiThe next-door house is close
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 “next-door” in Urdu?
«ہمسایہ», read “hamsaya”. In a live sentence: “ہمسایہ گھر قریب ہے” — The next-door house is close. Adjective, level A2; written with the characters ہ, م, س, ا, ی, ہ.
How is “ہمسایہ” written in Latin letters?
hamsaya. 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?
Literally "of one shadow": the house is so close the shadow is shared. The neighbor as a person you have met — parosi; hamsaya is said of him and of his house. A word with a story stays in memory longer than a “spelling — translation” pair: memory holds on to meaning, not to a string.