Urdu→English

Translate Urdu to English the way locals mean it.

Pakistani Urdu often softens refusals, requests, and irritation with words like بس, ذرا, and تو, so a textbook reading can miss whether someone is reassuring you, stalling, or telling you off.

Going the other way? English to Urdu

474 local dialects

AIRTranslate on iPhone choosing between Urdu varieties

What locals actually say

بس آپ آ جائیں، باقی میں دیکھ لوں گا۔

Just come over, I’ll handle the rest.

بس here narrows and softens the request to “just,” while دیکھ لوں گا signals that the speaker will take care of something, not literally that they will look at it.

آپ تو بڑے مصروف ہیں، جواب ہی نہیں دیتے۔

You’re clearly very busy, since you never reply.

آپ تو can introduce pointed sarcasm despite the respectful pronoun, and جواب ہی نہیں دیتے uses ہی for emphasis, making the complaint stronger than a neutral “you don’t reply.”

دیکھیں، یہ کام آج تو نہیں ہو پائے گا۔

Look, this just isn’t going to happen today.

دیکھیں is a polite way to get someone’s attention, not an instruction to look, while آج تو marks a firm contrast around today and ہو پائے گا expresses whether something is feasible.

یار، ذرا پانچ سو ادھار دے دو، تنخواہ آتے ہی واپس کر دوں گا۔

Hey, could you lend me five hundred for a bit? I’ll pay you back as soon as my salary comes in.

ادھار means borrowing or lending on trust, while ذرا softens the request in casual Pakistani Urdu.

آپ ذرا آگے جا کے بائیں ہاتھ مُڑ جائیں، مسجد کے بعد والی گلی ہے۔

Go a little farther, turn left, and it’s the lane after the mosque.

بائیں ہاتھ مُڑنا is a colloquial Urdu way to give directions, and بعد والی گلی identifies a lane by what comes before it.

میرے لیے چائے ذرا کڑک بنانا، دودھ کم رکھنا۔

Make my tea nice and strong, with less milk.

کڑک literally means strong or stiff, but in Pakistani Urdu it commonly signals strongly brewed tea.

امی کو بتا دینا کہ میں رات کو دیر سے آؤں گا۔

Let Mom know I’ll be home late tonight.

امی is the familiar Pakistani Urdu kinship term for mother, and بتا دینا is a softened request meaning to make sure someone is informed.

آج تو حبس نے برا حال کیا ہوا ہے، پنکھا بھی کام نہیں کر رہا۔

The humidity is awful today; even the fan isn’t doing much.

حبس refers to oppressive, humid heat, while برا حال کیا ہوا ہے is a colloquial construction describing an ongoing miserable condition.

Notes like these come with every AIRTranslate translation, so you learn why locals phrase it that way as you go.

How Urdu differs

Pakistani Urdu. آپ respectful default; contemporary Karachi/Lahore register; everyday English loanwords natural in casual text; nastaliq-style orthography conventions.

Sound like a local everywhere, not just here.

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