صديقي يسكن في حي قريب من الجامعة.

Because صديق means friend, and the suffix ـي attached to a noun means my.

So:

• صديق = friend
• صديقي = my friend

This suffix is very common in Arabic:

• كتابي = my book
• بيتي = my house
• أستاذي = my teacher

So صديقي is literally friend-my, which in English becomes my friend.

يسكن is the present tense / imperfect form meaning he lives or he resides.

It is in the 3rd person masculine singular form because صديقي refers to one male friend.

A useful comparison:

• يسكن = he lives
• تسكن = she lives / you live
• أسكن = I live
• نسكن = we live

So if the sentence were about a female friend, you would say:

• صديقتي تسكن في حي قريب من الجامعة.

Learners often notice that the sentence starts with a noun, not a verb.

Because it begins with صديقي, it can be analyzed as a nominal sentence in which:

• صديقي = the topic / subject
• يسكن في حي قريب من الجامعة = the predicate, which happens to be a verbal phrase

So although the sentence contains a verb, the whole sentence starts like a nominal sentence.

You could also say:

• يسكن صديقي في حي قريب من الجامعة.

That version begins with the verb and feels more like a straightforward verbal sentence.

Arabic does not have an indefinite article like English a/an.

So:

• حي can mean a neighborhood or a district
• الحي means the neighborhood / the district

In other words:

• حي = indefinite
• الحي = definite

That is why Arabic does not need a separate word for a.

Here حي means neighborhood, district, or quarter of a city.

It is usually pronounced ḥayy.

A few pronunciation notes:

• The first letter ح is a strong breathy h sound, deeper than English h
• The ي is doubled in pronunciation here, so it sounds like yy
• With full vowel marking, it is often written حَيّ

So the word is not pronounced like a simple hay; it is closer to ḥayy.

قريب describes حي.

So the structure is:

• حي قريب = a neighborhood that is close

Then the phrase continues:

• قريب من الجامعة = close to the university

So the meaning is:

• in a neighborhood close to the university

It does not mean that my friend is close to the university directly. Grammatically, قريب is attached to حي.

Because it matches حي, the noun it describes.

In Arabic, adjectives usually agree with the noun in:

• gender
• number
• definiteness

Here:

• حي is masculine
• حي is singular
• حي is indefinite

So the adjective must match:

• قريب = masculine singular indefinite

If the noun were definite, the adjective would also be definite:

• الحي القريب = the nearby neighborhood

Because قريب normally takes the preposition من when it means close to.

So the standard pattern is:

• قريب من... = close to...

Examples:

• قريب من البيت = close to the house
• قريب من المدرسة = close to the school
• قريب من الجامعة = close to the university

This is just the normal Arabic construction that goes with قريب in this meaning.

It has the definite article الـ, which means the.

So:

• جامعة = a university
• الجامعة = the university

In context, this usually refers to a known or specific university, such as the one being talked about.

Also, after the preposition من, the noun is in the genitive case, though in normal unvoweled writing you usually do not see that ending.

A fully vocalized version would be:

صَديقي يَسْكُنُ في حَيٍّ قَريبٍ مِنَ الجامِعَةِ.

This shows several things that are often omitted in everyday writing:

• يَسْكُنُ has the normal present-tense ending ـُ
• حَيٍّ is after في, so it is genitive
• قَريبٍ matches حَيٍّ
• الجامِعَةِ is also genitive after مِن

In most real-world Arabic texts, these short vowels are not written, so learners must infer them from grammar.

Yes. That is also correct.

Both are natural:

• صديقي يسكن في حي قريب من الجامعة.
• يسكن صديقي في حي قريب من الجامعة.

The difference is mostly one of style or emphasis:

• Starting with صديقي puts focus on my friend
• Starting with يسكن gives a more neutral, verb-first flow, which is very common in Arabic

So both are grammatical, and both mean essentially the same thing.