Persian/Lesson 5

In lessons 1 through 4, you learned some greetings and how to read, write, and pronounce Persian words. In this lesson, you will learn about Persian verbs: their agreement with the subject, their location in a sentence, and how to conjugate the most common one, بودن budan to be, in the simple present tense. Dialogue: شما کجایی هستید؟ šomâ kojâi hastid? Reza and Shirin have just met: شيرين Shirin خوشوقتم، آقا رضا. شما کجایی هستید؟ xošvaqtam, âqâ rezâ. šomâ kojâi hastid? Nice to meet you, Reza. Where are you from? رضا Reza من ایرانیم. از مشهد هستم. شما چطور؟ man irâniyam. az mašhad hastam. šomâ cetor? I’m Iranian. I’m from Mashhad. How about you? شيرين Shirin من از تهران هستم. man az tehrân hastam. I’m from Tehran. رضا Reza و آقای اسمیت؟ انگلیسی است؟ va âqâ-ye esmit? engelisi-st? And Mr. Smith? Is he English? شيرين Shirin خیر، او آمریکایی است. xeyr, u âmrikâiy-st. No, he’s American. |- | colspan=5 | If you intend to help complete this dialogue, please see #Exercises and Persian/Planning#Dialogue for suggestions that emphasize this lesson's topic: simple present tense forms of بودن . |} Explanation Shirin and Reza have just met. While "âqâ" is an honorific used in Persian before Male given names, it is not translated to "Mr." in English. Vocabulary کجایی kojâi from where? ایرانیم irâniyam (I) am Iranian. او u /uː/ he, she, it انگلیسی engelisiy English خیر xeyr no آمریکایی âmrikâiy American ما mâ /mɒː/ we, us آنها ânhâ /ɒːnˈhɒː/ they Subjects In both English and Persian, sentences have subjects and verbs. In a sentence that expresses an action, the subject is usually the main actor or agent. In a sentence that makes a comment about a topic, the subject is usually that topic. A verb is a word like talk that expresses an action, or one like is that links the subject to the words that comment about it: Sentence Subject Verb “I am a student.” “I” “am” “Did you complete the assignment?” “you” “Did complete” “Study this grammar topic!” “(you)”The word “you” does not usually appear in English commands, but the grammatical subject “you” is implied. “Study” Each sentence above, like all complete sentences in English and Persian, has a subject and a verb, even if the subject is only implied. Subjects have grammatical “number” and “person”: First, second, or third person: indicates whether the speaker or addressee is included Singular or plural number: indicates how many people or things are included The grammatical number may be different from the semantic number. E.g., in “These scissors are dull”, the subject and verb are grammatically plural but semantically indicate a single item. In Persian, there are similar constructions, and both plural pronouns and plural verb forms are often used as a polite version of the singular. More about this will be explained in later lessons. Grammatical person and number may be represented by the following pronouns: Grammatical number and person Number Singular (one) Plural (more than one) First person (the speaker) من ما ‹man› ‹mâ› “I” “we” Second person (the addressee) تو شما ‹to› ‹šomâ› “you” “you” Third person (someone else) او آنها ‹u› ‹ânhâ› “he/she/it” “they” Present tense forms of بودن budan to be بودن budan to be Simple present tense, “full” form Stem: هست‍ hast- Number Singular Plural First person(من) هستم(ما) هستیم (‹man›) ‹hastam› (‹mâ›) ‹hastim› “(I) am” “(we) are” Second person(تو) هستی(شما) هستید (‹to›) ‹hasti› (‹šomâ›) ‹hastin›Note: The Persian script here uses formal spelling, but the transcriptions in angle brackets shows typical colloquial pronunciation. In colloquial speech, for example, the ending ‍ید -id is often pronounced as ‹-in› and the word است ast is is pronounced as ‹e› after a consonant or as ‹s› after a vowel. Other differences between spoken and written Persian will be given in the lessons that follow. “(you) are” “(you) are” Third person(او) هست(آنها) هستند (‹u›) ‹hast› (‹ânhâ›) ‹hastan› “(he/she/it) is” “(they) are” Persian verbs are conjugated by adding suffixes, similar to the way English verbs like talk take the suffixes -s, -ed, and -ing to make verb forms like talks , talked , and talking . In Persian, though, the verb’s suffix clearly indicates its grammatical person and number. For example, the table on the right shows the simple present tense “full” forms of the Persian verb بودن budan to be, consisting of the stem هست‍ hast- and various suffixes to indicate the person and number: Conjugation no | Say each of the personal pronouns from the table above. While saying each one, imagine and point to the people to whom the pronoun might refer. For example, while saying ما mâ we, us, imagine another person next to you and point to that person and yourself. |- | Repeat the personal pronouns as above, but after each one, say the corresponding simple present tense full forms of بودن budan from the table above. For example, when saying شما šomâ you (plural), point to two imaginary addressees and then say هستید hastin. |} The full simple present tense of بودن budan appeared as هستید hastin and هستم hastam in the first and third lines of the dialogue above. بودن budan also appears in abbreviated form above, once as the word است e and once as the suffix ‍م -am following ایرانی irâniy Iranian. That's because the verb بودن budan has both a full form using the stem هست‍ hast- and a short form. The long form is a bit more formal in tone and often carries the sense of “exists”. The short form is used more often than the long form, especially in casual speech. As shown below, most of the short form is written as suffixes (technically clitics since they attach to phrases rather than just words) like ‍ید -in in چطورید cetorin how are you, but the third person singular form is written as a separate word: است e is: بودن budan to be Simple present tense, short form Number Singular Plural First person... + ‍م... + ‍یم ‹...am› ‹...im› “(I) am” “(we) are” Second person... + ‍ی... + ‍ید ‹...i› ‹...id›, ‹...in› “(you) are” “(you) are” Third personاست... + ‍ند ‹ast›, ‹...e›, ‹...s› ‹...+an› “(he/she/it) is” “(they) are” است ast can be used with singular or plural subjects to express existence, like "there is" or "there are" in English. For plural “animate” subjects (one that refers to multiple people or to a thing that might be thought to behave figuratively like multiple people), existence can also be expressed with the plural form هستند hastan. Some sources disagree with this and say است is only used as a copula, never used for existence. Colloquially, هستند hastand may be a suffix pronounced ‹an› after consonant or ‹n› after vowel. Word order As the previous dialogues have shown, the verb usually comes last in a simple Persian sentence. For example, the last word in each Persian sentence below is a form of the verb بودن budan to be: من خوب هستم. من man I خوب xub fine هستم hastam am I am fine. تو دانشجو هستی. تو to you دانشجو danešju student هستی hasti are You are a student. دانشگاه بزرگ است. دانشگاه dânešgâh university بزرگ bozorg big است e is The university is big. Grammatically, subjects are optional in Persian. Since the suffix of a conjugated verb clearly indicates the number and person of the subject, subject pronouns are often omitted from Persian sentences, except when used for emphasis. Exercises Reading Persian sentences | Translate the following Persian sentences into English: |- |او آرش است. He is Arash. آرش خوش است. Arash is happy. |} Creating Persian sentences |- | Fill in the blanks. [...] کجاست؟ Where is [...]? Fill in the blank with someone's name. شما [...] هستید؟ šomâ [...] hastin? Are you a [...]? Fill in the blank with an occupation (e.g. دکتز doktor doctor), a role (e.g. دانشجو dânešju student), or a nationality (e.g. ایرانی irâni Iranian). نه، من [...]م. nah, man [...]am. No, I am a [...]. Fill in the blank with an occupation. شما کجایی هستید؟ šomâ kojey hastin? Where are you from? من آمریکاییم. man âmrikâiyam. I'm American. من ایرانیم. شما چطور؟ man irâniam. šomâ cetor? I'm Iranian. How about you? ببخشید، شما کجایی هستد؟ to ask about someone's nationality من انگلیسیم. man engelisiam. I'm English. or other nationalities سما هم انگلیسی هستین؟ šomâm engelisi hastin? Are you also English? نه، من انگلیسی نیستم. آمریکاییم. nah, man engelisi nistam. âmrikâiyam. |- | Translate the following English sentences into Persian: |- |He is Hassan. Hassan is my friend. |} Review In this lesson, you learned how to conjugate two sets of simple present tense forms of the Persian verb بودن budan to be.... Core vocabulary: کجایی kojâi from where? ایرانیم irâniyam (I) am Iranian. او u /uː/ he, she, it آمریکایی âmrikâiy American ما mâ /mɒː/ we, us آنها ânhâ /ɒːnˈhɒː/ they ...s: ابپثت abepesete lorem ipsum dolor... ... words: ابپثت abepesete lorem ipsum dolor... 5 Notes Persian/Lesson 6 Lesson 6 ( ۶ ), Noun phrases, ezâfe