Learn Persian (Farsi)

Conversation about Iran in Persian

Translation:

List of most common Adjectives

Word order for adjective-noun phrases in Persian is different from English.
In English adjective comes first, followed by noun, i.e.:
Adjective + Noun
beautiful + day
Whereas, in Persian noun comes first followed by e-link and adjective:
Noun + e-link + Adjective
/ruz/ + /e/ + /zibā/
روز زیبا

Examples:

اتاق بزرگ	Listen	/otāq-e bozorg/	big room
دوست خوب	Listen	/dust-e xub/	good friend
پزشک مهربان	Listen	/pezešk-e mehrabān/	kind doctor
نوزاد خوشگل	Listen	/nozād-e xošgel/	cute baby
انتخابات محلی	Listen	/entexābāt-e mahalli/	local election

We use “e-link” to link a noun (or a noun phrase) to the following word(s).
The use of e-sound after a noun often signals to the listener that he/she is about to be given further information about the noun.
This information may indicate ownership, origin, description, name, and so on.

Note:
The use of e-link is usually very similar to “of” in English:
Bank of England → /bānk-e Englis/ بانکِ انگلیس
Colour of sky → /rang-e āsemān/ رنگِ آسمان

Note:
If the word immediately before the e-link is a vowel, we use -ye instead of e for ease of pronunciation.

غذای ِ من
/qazāye man/
my food

Examples

Ownership

کتاب من	Listen	/ketābe man/	my book
خودکار من	Listen	/xodkāre man/	my pen

Origin

فرش ایرانی	Listen	/farš-e Irani/	Persian rug
ساعت سوییسی	Listen	/sa’at-e Swissi/	Swiss watch

Description

گل قرمز	Listen	/gol-e qermez/	red flower
هواپیمای بزرگ	Listen	/havāpeymā-ye bozorg/	big aeroplane

Name

فیلم تایتانیک	Listen	/film-e Titanic/	Titanic movie
ماشین هوندا	Listen	/māšin-e Honda/	Honda car

Conversation about the Job in Persian

Translation:

In English a definite article (the) comes immediately before a known object:
I am reading the book.
In Persian, the definite article is:
/rā/ را

It (almost) always follows the object and comes immediately after that.

The simple structure of a sentence in English is as below:
SUBJECT + VERB + the (article) + OBJECT

This structure in Persian is slightly different:

SUBJECT + OBJECT + rā (article) + VERB

Example:
English: I read the the book.
Persian: /man ketāb rā xāndam/
من کتاب را خواندم.

Example:
English: I broke the window.
Persian: /man panjare rā šekastam/
من پنجره را شکستم.

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Examples:
/man haft ketāb dāram/
/barādare man šeš sāle hast/
/man yek dust dar Pāris dāram/

Making negative verbs in Past Simple is similar to Negative Present Simple tense.
The only difference is, in Present Simple you add NE (ن) in the beginning of the verb, while in Past Simple, you add NA (ن) in the beginning of the verb.

In fact in both you add the same letter (i.e. /n/) but with different following vowel.

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Example:

(Right to Left) ←

(Left to Right) →

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Can you do the same for these verbs:
To drink: /nušidan/ past tense root: nušid
To see: /didan/ past tense root: ?
To read: /xāndan/ past tense root: ?
To say: /goftan/ past tense root: ?

The structure of past simple verbs in Persian is very similar to present simple verbs.
In order to generate a past simple verb in Persian, we are taking steps introduced in this lesson.

Please note that in Past tenses, we need to use Past Tense root of the verb.

1. Tense prefix (WHEN?)

Past Simple tense has no Tense Prefix. It means that the verb starts with Past Tense root.

2. Past tense root (WHAT?)

Making past tense root in Persian is very easy.

All infinitives in Persian, end in /an/ (ن). Not to mention that the letter “a”, is a vowel and is not an actual letter in Persian script.

All you have to is, drop N from the end of the infinitive and you will have the Past tense root.

Example:

Infinitive: To Eat /xordan/ خوردن

Past tense root: /xord/ خورد

3. Person suffix

Introduced in this lesson

Exception: Singular Third person does not take its Person’s suffix (i.e. “D”).

All infinitives in Persian end in either /DaN/ or /TaN/, while majority of them end in /DaN/. It means that if the Singular Third person’s suffix was applied to Past Simple verb, the verb would be:

/xordad/ خوردد

The example above illustrates that the same letter /d/ (د) would be repeated at the end of the verb. Repetitive letters do not sound very nice in Persian language, and possibly due to this hypothesis, the repetitive letter of /d/ has been dropped in order to make the verb easier to be pronounced.

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Example:

(Right to Left) ←

(Left to Right) →

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Can you do the same for these verbs:
To drink: /nušidan/ past tense root: nušid
To see: /didan/ past tense root: ?
To read: /xāndan/ past tense root: ?
To say: /goftan/ past tense root: ?