Learn Persian (Farsi)

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

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.

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: ?

Making negative verbs in Present Simple is very easy.

What you have to is  add NE (ن) in the beginning of the verb.

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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/ imperative form: /benuš/
To see: /didan/ imperative form: /bebin/
To read: /xāndan/ imperative form: /bexān/
To say: /goftan/ imperative form: /begu/

In order to generate a present simple verb, we are taking steps introduced in this lesson. Hence, we need to identify three elements which make a verb in this tense:

1. Tense prefix (WHEN?)

می /mi/

2. Verb tense root (WHAT?)

In most verbs, drop the letter ب and its following vowel /b[a]/ or /b[e]/ or /b[o]/from the beginning of imperative form*

Example:

Infinitive: To Eat /xordan/ خوردن

Imperative: Eat /boxor/ بخور

Present tense root: /xor/ خور → بخور

* Almost all of imperative verbs start with /b/

3. Person suffix

Introduced in this lesson

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Example:

(Right to Left) ←

(Left to Right) →

---

Can you do the same for these verbs:
To drink: /nušidan/ imperative form: /benuš/
To see: /didan/ imperative form: /bebin/
To read: /xāndan/ imperative form: /bexān/
To say: /goftan/ imperative form: /begu/

In Persian, any verb can be interpreted independent of other parts of the sentence. This means that if a verb is extracted from the sentence, it can answer three questions about the action:

• WHEN?
• WHAT?
• WHO?

These questions are answered by three elements, which usually come in this order:

• Tense prefix (can be absent)
• Verb tense root
• Person suffix:

(read from right to left)

Tense prefix (WHEN?) [can be absent in some tenses]

This prefix is the same across each tense, regardless of the person for which the verb is used.

Verb tense root(WHAT?)

In Persian, you need to learn 2 forms of each verb:

• Infinitive
• Imperative

The root for different tenses (e.g. present simple, past perfect) can be easily generated from these two forms. This topic will be expanded in next lessons under each tense lesson.

Person suffix(WHO?)

You learned person suffixes for to-be verbs here. The person suffixes for other verbs are precisely the same as person suffixes for to be verbs, except for singular third person (he/she).

The person suffix for singular third person (he/she) is /d/. However, some tenses do not need any person suffix for singular third person (he/she). Hence the universal person suffix table will be as below:

* in some tenses it is dropped, but in others it is /-d/

In this lesson, we learn how to say: “I am fine” and also you are fine, he is fine, etc.

In colloquial Persian, it is common to drop /hast/ and join the adjective person’s suffix together:

The formula for negative to be verb is similar to what we learned in this post:

Negative Present tense root of to be verb is:

نیست /nist/

Negative To be verbs (simple present tense)