How to write captions in Roman Urdu

Roman Urdu has no official spelling, which is freedom and a trap at the same time. "Kya", "kia" and "kiya" all appear in the wild. Pick your version of the twenty words you use most — kaise, kitna, acha, zaroorat, poora, sirf — and keep them identical everywhere, because consistency is what makes your captions searchable inside the app and makes the account feel like one person wrote it.

Do not translate what nobody translates. "Delivery", "booking", "appointment", "warranty", "installment", "discount" stay in English in real speech, and forcing an Urdu equivalent makes the caption sound like a government notice. Mixed is how the twin cities actually talk: "Free delivery hai Islamabad aur Rawalpindi mein, order karne ke liye WhatsApp karein." That is a caption, not a translation exercise.

Structure the caption for the truncation point. Only the first line or so shows before "more", so the hook, the price or the question goes there. Then two or three short lines of detail, then one clear instruction — WhatsApp karein, save kar lein, comment mein batayein. Put the location line in explicitly if you are a local business, because "F-10 Markaz" and "Satellite Town" are words people search inside Instagram and Google.

One decision worth making deliberately: Roman Urdu, Urdu script or English. Roman reaches the widest local audience and is what most people type. Urdu script looks more formal and suits religious, poetry and news-adjacent content. English suits technical topics and overseas viewers. Many of our clients run English on-screen text with a Roman Urdu caption underneath, which covers both without doubling the work. We caption in whichever mix suits the audience — it is part of every editing package we run.