أعيش في شقة صغيرة في مبنى جديد قرب الجامعة.

In Arabic, the verb often already tells you who the subject is.
أعيش means I live, so the separate pronoun أنا is usually unnecessary.

• أعيش = I live
• أنا أعيش = I live / I am living, but with extra emphasis

So the sentence sounds natural without أنا unless you want contrast or emphasis, such as I live there, not someone else.

أعيش is the present tense / imperfect form of the verb عاشَ (to live).

It is the:

• 1st person singular
• meaning I live or I am living

The initial أ is the marker for I in this tense.

So:

• أعيش = I live
• تعيش = you live / she lives
• يعيش = he lives
• نعيش = we live

Arabic does not use a separate present-tense verb to be the way English does.

In this sentence, أعيش already means I live.
You do not need a separate word for am.

This is normal in Arabic:

• أنا طالب = I am a student
• هو طويل = He is tall

But in your sentence, the main verb is to live, so أعيش fully carries the meaning.

What you usually see in everyday Arabic writing is unvowelled text, so short case endings are not written.

A fully vowelled version would be something like:

أعيشُ في شقّةٍ صغيرةٍ في مبنًى جديدٍ قربَ الجامعةِ.

But in ordinary books, articles, messages, and signs, those endings are normally omitted:

أعيش في شقة صغيرة في مبنى جديد قرب الجامعة.

So the grammar is still there, even if the endings are not shown.

In Arabic, adjectives normally come after the noun they describe.

So:

• شقة صغيرة = a small apartment
• literally: apartment small

This is the standard noun + adjective order in Arabic.

Because شقة is a feminine noun, and Arabic adjectives must agree with the noun they describe.

So:

• شقة = feminine
• صغيرة = feminine form of small

Agreement usually includes:

• gender
• number
• definiteness

Compare:

• شقة صغيرة = a small apartment
• بيت صغير = a small house

Because مبنى is a masculine noun, so its adjective must also be masculine.

So:

• مبنى = building
• جديد = new (masculine)

Compare:

• شقة جديدة = a new apartment
• مبنى جديد = a new building

Even though some nouns do not look obviously masculine or feminine to an English speaker, the adjective still has to match the noun’s grammatical gender.

Because they are indefinite here:

• شقة صغيرة = a small apartment
• مبنى جديد = a new building

If you added الـ, they would become definite:

• الشقة الصغيرة = the small apartment
• المبنى الجديد = the new building

Arabic does not have a separate word for a/an, so indefiniteness is usually shown simply by the absence of الـ.

Here الجامعة is definite: the university.

Arabic often uses the in places where English may or may not, depending on context. In this sentence, near the university refers to a known or identifiable university.

So:

• جامعة = a university
• الجامعة = the university

في means in.

It appears twice because the sentence has two separate prepositional phrases:

• في شقة صغيرة = in a small apartment
• في مبنى جديد = in a new building

So the structure is:

I live
→ in a small apartment
→ in a new building
→ near the university

Each phrase adds more detail about the location.

قرب here means near.

In this sentence, it functions like a preposition or adverbial noun of place:

• قرب الجامعة = near the university

So قرب الجامعة tells you where the building is.

A fully vowelled form is often written as:

• قربَ الجامعةِ

Yes. That is also very common.

Compare:

• قرب الجامعة = near the university
• بالقرب من الجامعة = near the university / in the vicinity of the university

Both are correct.
بالقرب من is slightly more explicitly prepositional and is very common in both written and spoken Arabic.

So you could say:

أعيش في شقة صغيرة في مبنى جديد بالقرب من الجامعة.

That means essentially the same thing.

A fully vowelled version would be:

أعيشُ في شقّةٍ صغيرةٍ في مبنًى جديدٍ قربَ الجامعةِ.

Here is why:

• أعيشُ: nominative/indicative ending on the verb
• في شقّةٍ: after في, the noun is genitive
• صغيرةٍ: adjective agrees with شقة, so also genitive
• في مبنًى: after في, genitive
• جديدٍ: adjective agrees with مبنى, so also genitive
• قربَ الجامعةِ: قرب is often treated as an adverbial/accusative noun of place, and الجامعةِ is in the genitive after it

In normal writing, these endings are almost always omitted.

مبنى is pronounced roughly mabnan in full case pronunciation, or mabna in pause.

The final ى is alif maqṣūra, which represents a final long ā sound.

So although it looks a little unusual to beginners, the ending sounds like:

• -ā in pause

This word comes from a root connected with building/constructing, and the spelling is normal for this pattern.

شقة is pronounced approximately shiqqa.

Important things to notice:

• The middle consonant is doubled: قّ
• That doubling is shown by the shadda
• The final ة is tāʾ marbūṭa

In pause, you usually hear it as shiqqa.
In connected fully inflected speech, the t sound can appear before endings, as in شقةٍ.

So it is not pronounced like two separate words or a simple shika; the doubled q matters.

Yes, but it is also straightforward.

The sentence begins with the verb:

أعيش = I live

Then Arabic adds location details one after another:

• في شقة صغيرة
• في مبنى جديد
• قرب الجامعة

This kind of structure is very natural in Arabic: start with the main action or state, then add descriptive phrases.

You could think of it as:

I live
in a small apartment
in a new building
near the university

Yes. In Arabic, adjectives agree with the noun in definiteness as well as gender and number.

In your sentence:

• شقة صغيرة = both indefinite
• مبنى جديد = both indefinite

If the noun were definite, the adjective would also need الـ:

• الشقة الصغيرة
• المبنى الجديد

You cannot normally mix them like:

• الشقة صغيرة if you mean the small apartment as one noun phrase

That combination would usually mean the apartment is small, which is a different structure.

Because قرب itself already expresses location: near.

So:

• في مبنى جديد قرب الجامعة = in a new building near the university

You do not need في before قرب because قرب is already doing the job of locating the building.

Arabic often stacks location expressions like this very naturally.

In practice, it most naturally describes the building as being near the university, though the apartment is of course inside that building.

The structure is:

• in a small apartment
• in a new building
• near the university

So the phrase قرب الجامعة most directly attaches to مبنى جديد.
But semantically, the whole living location is near the university.

A learner would probably want to remember these:

• أعيش / عاش = to live
• في = in
• شقة = apartment
• صغيرة = small
• مبنى = building
• جديد = new
• قرب = near
• الجامعة = the university

This sentence is useful because it combines:

• a common verb
• location phrases
• adjective agreement
• definite vs. indefinite nouns