השכן החדש גר בקומה הראשונה.

A natural pronunciation is ha-sha-KHEN he-kha-DASH gar ba-ko-MA ha-ri-sho-NA.

A slightly more phonetic transliteration is hashakhén hekhadásh gar bakomá harishoná.

A few pronunciation notes:

• ש here sounds like sh.
• ח in חדש is a throaty sound, often written kh.
• גר is just one syllable: gar.
• הראשונה is stressed at the end: ri-sho-NA.

Because in Hebrew, adjectives usually come after the noun they describe.

So:

• שכן חדש = a new neighbor
• not חדש שכן

This is the normal word order in Hebrew for noun + adjective.

Because when a noun is definite in Hebrew, an adjective that directly describes it usually becomes definite too.

So:

• שכן חדש = a new neighbor
• השכן החדש = the new neighbor

This is different from English, where only the appears once. In Hebrew, both the noun and its adjective usually show definiteness.

This is a very important distinction:

• השכן החדש = the new neighbor
• השכן חדש = the neighbor is new

In other words:

• with ה־ on both words, חדש is an adjective attached to the noun
• without ה־ on חדש, it can be a predicate adjective: the neighbor is new

So in your sentence, השכן החדש is one unit meaning the new neighbor.

גר comes from the verb לגור, meaning to live or to reside.

In this sentence, it means:

• lives
• or is living

Hebrew present tense does not usually distinguish as clearly as English between lives and is living. The same form can cover both, depending on context.

Because Hebrew normally does not use a present-tense form of to be the way English does.

So Hebrew says:

• השכן חדש = the neighbor is new
• not something like the neighbor is new with a separate word for is

In your sentence, though, the main verb is already גר = lives / is living, so no extra is is needed anyway.

Yes, that is a good question. For this verb, גר can also be the past tense, masculine singular form: he lived.

So without context, גר can sometimes be ambiguous.

Why is it understood as present here?

• In an isolated, neutral sentence like this, Hebrew speakers will usually understand it as present
• Context usually makes the time clear
• If there were a past-time expression, like אתמול or בשנה שעברה, it would push the meaning toward the past

Because the subject השכן החדש is masculine singular.

Hebrew verbs in the present tense agree with the subject in gender and number:

• masculine singular: גר
• feminine singular: גרה

So:

• השכן החדש גר... = the new male neighbor lives...
• השכנה החדשה גרה... = the new female neighbor lives...

Because the ה־ on קומה has merged with the preposition ב־.

The phrase is really:

• ב + הקומה הראשונה

In Hebrew, ב־ + ה־ often combine into one form. So:

• בהקומה is not used
• instead you get בקומה, pronounced here like ba-koma

So בקומה הראשונה means on/in the first floor, with the whole phrase definite.

This is also a place where Hebrew and English differ:

• English says on the first floor
• Hebrew uses ב־

Prepositions do not match one-to-one across the two languages.

Because קומה is a feminine noun, and ראשונה is the feminine form of first.

So:

• masculine: ראשון
• feminine: ראשונה

Also, ראשונה means first as an ordinal number, while אחת means one as a counting number.

So:

• קומה ראשונה = first floor
• not קומה אחת, which would mean something like one floor

Be careful: this can depend on the culture.

In Israeli Hebrew, קומת קרקע is the ground floor, and קומה ראשונה is usually the floor above that.

So in many cases:

• Hebrew קומה ראשונה matches British English first floor
• but American English speakers may think of it as second floor

So the grammar is simple, but the real-world reference can differ depending on the English variety you are comparing it to.