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| INTRODUCTION |
| Mohammad: Hi everyone! This is Mohammad! |
| Becky: Hello everyone, and welcome back to PersianPod101.com. This is All About, Lesson 3 - Painless Persian Grammar. I’m Becky. |
| Mohammad: In this lesson, you’ll learn the basics of Persian Grammar. |
| Becky: That’s right, we’ll just be giving a basic overview. So let’s jump right in. |
Lesson focus |
|---|
| Mohammad: First, let’s talk about words in Persian. |
| Becky: Persian words usually consist of one or more syllables, right? |
| Mohammad: Yes, and every one of the syllables must have one vowel. |
| Becky: What about the order of words in a sentence? What’s it like compared to English? |
| Mohammad: It's slightly different to English, with the subject at the beginning, and the verb at the end. All other parts known as the predicate - such as the object - come in between these two. |
| Becky: So verbs have to be last in a sentence, right? |
| Mohammad: That’s right. Now let’s talk a little more about how verbs conjugate. |
| Becky: Ok. Well, verbs have tenses, attached pronouns, singular/plural forms, and time. Also, like many other languages, they contain - passive/active, transitive/intransitive, simple/compound, auxiliary/lexical, and other forms. If you are wondering how to determine the differences of time and form in Persian, here’s the answer: by adding prefixes and attached pronoun suffixes. |
| Mohammad: Yes. By adding "Mi" before the verb, the present form is made, like "Miravam" meaning " I go". By adding "Be" instead, the conditional form is created, like "Beravam" meaning "If I go". And if we add "Ne" before "Mi", we'll have the negative present tense, like "Nemiravam" meaning "I don't go". |
| Becky: So the prefix plus base of the verb determines the verb's time. The past tense base doesn't need a prefix. The present tense is formed by using "Mi" plus the present base. |
| Mohammad: The future tense is made by adding "Khah" as a verb conjugation to the past tense base. Let's have an example with a sentence to see both word order and verb tense. |
| Becky: Ok, what’s "Yesterday I went to my friend's house” in Persian? |
| Mohammad: You can say "Man diruz be khaneye doostam raftam". "Man" means "I" which is the subject, and comes first. "Diruz" means "Yesterday", "Be" is the preposition meaning "To", and "Khane" is "House". "Ye" is "Of", and "Doostam" means "My friend". |
| Becky: So in Persian all of these words come after the subject and before the verb, right? |
| Mohammad: Right. That’s why the verb "Raftam" was placed last in the sentence. It’s the past tense of the verb "To Go" but only used for "I", the singular first person. We understand the person by the "Am" pronoun suffix, that’s attached to the base of the verb, which is "Raft". We'll learn this suffix next with pronouns. |
| Becky: How would you say this sentence in the future tense? So, “Tomorrow, I’m going to my friend’s house.” |
| Mohammad: It would go like like this: "Man farda be khaneye doostam khaham raft". "Farda" means "Tomorrow", and "Khaham raft" meaning “Will go” is the verb "Khah", plus the "Am" pronoun for singular first person, plus "Raft" which is the past tense base. For second person, it'll become "Khahi raft". |
| Becky: Speaking of pronouns, they can be attached to verbs, right? |
| Mohammad: That's right. There are two types of pronouns in the Persian language. Separate pronouns, and Attached ones. |
| Becky: The separate ones are those that can be subjects, and there are six of them, the plural and the singular 1st, 2nd, and 3rd person. Can you name them Mohammad? |
| Mohammad: Sure! The separate pronouns are: Man which means ”I”, To which means ‘singular You”, Oo which means He”,”she” or “it”, Ma which means We”, Shoma which means ‘plural You”, Ishan or Anha which means ”They”. |
| Becky: The attached pronouns are those attached to the end of verbs, and there are also six of those. |
| Mohammad: Yes, they are as follows. Am=’do as I do’, ii or EE=do as you do, Ad=do as he does, Im=do as we do, Id=do as you do, And=do as they do. |
| Becky: The 3rd person singular form doesn't have an attached pronoun in the past tense. |
| Mohammad: There is also another series of attached pronouns that are added to nouns, and show who they belong to. These are Am, At, Ash, Eman, Etan, Eshan meaning “Mine”, “Your”, “His/her/it’s”, “Our”, “Your”, “Their”. Like "Medademan" meaning "Our Pencil". |
| Becky: Ok, as a final question, do nouns have a plural form? And if they do, how do they become plural? |
| Mohammad: Nouns in Persian, become plural by adding "Ha" at the end of them. Adding "An" is also another way but it’s used less often. For example, "Parande" meaning "Bird", which becomes "Parandeha" or "Parandegan". When adding "An", the "E" letter becomes "G". |
| Becky: Ok listeners, make sure to check the lesson notes to reinforce what you’ve learned in this lesson. |
Outro |
| Becky: Well listeners, that’s going to do it for this lesson! |
| Mohammad: Thank you for joining us. |
| Becky: Until next time, bye! |
| Mohammad: Bye.! |
Comments
HideWhat do you think of Persian grammar? Do you think it is more difficult than other languages?
Hello Ben,
Thank you for your comment!
Regarding the grammar lessons, we are constantly updating the lessons on our site, so please stay tuned! 👍
And for the verbs, I think this list would be helpful:
https://www.persianpod101.com/persian-vocabulary-lists/vocabulary-for-the-25-most-commonly-used-verbs-of-any-language
Please don't hesitate to contact us if any questions arise throughout your studies. We would be happy to help you! 😊
Sincerely,
Ali
Team PersianPod101.com
Can you please publish more grammar lessons. Vocab is good but the grammar is so important like verb conjugations. Can you also please give verb lists and how to write using English transliteration? Thanks
Hello Kos,
Thank you for posting.
This series doesn't have a quiz, which is included in series with a [Vocabulary] section.
Please check out our other series that have this feature, such as:
3-Minute Persian (https://www.persianpod101.com/lesson-library/3-minute-persian-greetings-and-useful-phrases/), for example.
Our Lesson Library has even more options for you:
https://www.persianpod101.com/lesson-library/absolute-beginner
We hope this helps!
Let us know if you have any questions.
Cheers,
Cristiane
Team PersianPod101.com
Where do I find the quiz for this lesson? Kos
Hello dear Wahyuni Kamah,
To or shomaa if used after a noun can be translated to your.
کتاب تو ketaab-e to your book (second person singular)
اتاق شما otaagh-e shomaa ( second person plural)
The same thing goes with other pronouns.
کتابم ketaabam my book
کتابت ketaabat your book
And so on.
Hope it helps. Please don't hesitate to ask questions if any.
Best,
Mehrnaz
Team PersianPod101
I have the following question, and it's not been replied for almost a week. Can you please reply?
In the text of separate pronoun the meaning of "to" and "shoma" is you/your. In my understanding, your in English is the possessive pronoun. So, for other pronouns like "man, o, ma and anha", they can function as personal pronoun and objective pronoun, but not possessive pronoun. Is that correct?
What are the possessive pronouns for "man, o, ma and anha"?
thanks!
In the text of separate pronoun the meaning of to and shoma is you/your. In my understanding, your in English is the possessive pronoun. So, for other pronouns like man, o, ma and anha, they can function as personal pronoun and objective pronoun, but not possessive pronoun. Is that correct?
What are the possessive pronouns for man, o, ma and anha?
thanks!
Dear Jai,
You are right.
We never know how much our native languages are difficult to learn till we start teaching them. And when I started teaching with PersianPod101, I realized that it IS a difficult language, but don't worry at all. We have lots of amazing materials here to make it fun and easier to learn Persian.
Keep up the good work,
Mehrnaz
Team PersianPod101.com
So far I would say it is more difficult than other languages :smile:
Hello querenta
Thank you so much for your notice and listening to our lessons. We appreciate that and we will do our best for improving our lessons.
As you mentioned, lesson notes are quite helpful for understanding the lessons, so don't miss them :wink:
How to build a base of a verb from the infinitive?
Answer: By removing "ن" from the end of the word. for example: رفتن --> رفت ؛ خوردن --> خورد ؛ دیدن --> دید
raftan --> raft; khordan--> khord; didan--> did
conjugation of raftan, 3rd. person past, is is regualar that there i no ending at raft-? is this with every regular verb or is this special for raftan? Do you alsways leave out a ending in past 3rd form?
Answer: Yes, the 3rd person of the past form has no ending and this is a regular form for all the verbs. And it is actually the same as base of the verb.
Hope you got your answers and please let us know if you don't understand any part of the lesson.
Sincerely,
Mohammad
Team PersianPod101.com
conjugation of raftan, 3rd. person past, is is regualar that there i no ending at raft-? is this with every regular verb or is this special for raftan? Do you alsways leave out a ending in past 3rd form?
Sorry I was missing out the lesson notes, which were extremely helpful. The audio ONLY is a bit useless for teaching grammar to be honest but with the lesson notes it was very good to understand.
Only 1 question remaining: How to build a base of a verb from the infinitive?
To be honest I didn't enjoy this session as much as I usually do enjoy your sessions.
Good Explanations were missing. What is the Verb where you build mi ravam from? raftan? because looking up raftan shows me very different ways of conjugating a verb. Also how do I build a Verb from the infinitve?
I really hope you can help me here.
Hi Miguel,
You are right, It may be a little too early to say in the begining.:wink:
Please come back later and tell us what you think!
Thank you.
Cheers,
Christine
Team PersianPod101.com
it is too early to say
آن است که خیلی زود می گویند
:innocent:
Hi Miguel,
Thank you a lot for your comment, it's great to hear you're enjoying our lessons!!
Do you think Persian grammar is hard?
Cheers,
Mélanie
Team PersianPod101.com
This was a very good lesson.
این درس بسیار خوبی بود.:sweat_smile: