Learn how to use the verb "to do"
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| Salām be hamegi! Man Anita hastam. Hi everybody! I’m Anita |
| Welcome to PersianPod101.com’s “Persian in 3 minutes.” The fastest, easiest, and most fun way to learn Persian. |
| In the last lesson, you learned how to use the verb raftan which means "to go" in Persian. |
| In this lesson, we will continue our lesson series dedicated to very common Persian verbs. |
| The second verb in our series is kardan, which is another "to do" verb. The past root of this verb is "kard" and the present root is "kon". |
| In Persian, things are a bit more complicated than English when it comes to saying "to do". There are different verbs used in many different situations. |
| So imagine someone asks you Che kār mikoni |
| That means "What are you doing?" in an informal form. Do you remember kār, “work”? |
| Notice that mikoni consists of mi plus kon, the present root of kardan, plus the personal pronoun "i" |
| So if you are working, for example, you will say in Persian kār mikonam. "I am working" mi plus kon plus am |
| [slowly] kār mikonam. |
| But when someone asks this question, they usually want more details of what kār, “work" or "activity,” you are doing at the moment. So, you need to put the specific noun or adjective before the verb kardan. |
| For example: |
| Tamiz kardan. to clean. |
| Safar kardan. to travel. |
| Lams kardan. to touch. |
| Bāzi kardan. to play. |
| Āmāde kardan. to make (something) ready. |
| Unlike English where we say things like “I’m doing laundry.”, verbs which are made using kardan are not so common. Instead we use the specific verb. Such as: |
| "qazā mikhoram" (I am eating food), or |
| "ketāb mikhānam" (I am reading a book) |
| etc. |
| So to make the present indicative for a verb, you just need to know the present root of the verb. Then by adding "me" to the front of the verb's , and adding the personal pronoun to the end, you can make a present indicative. |
| For example: |
| Mikhoram : Mi + Khor + am [please insert English translation] |
| Mikhānam: Mi+ Khān + am [please insert English translation] |
| Now you know that the present indicative is for saying that you are doing something now. But most of the time, Persians add the infinitives of Dāshtan before the verb to make it stronger, as something that they are doing "right now". Dāshtan's present root is "Dār". |
| So you may hear: |
| Dāram kār mikonam. I am working right now. or |
| Dāram mikhoram. I am eating right now. |
| The grammar pattern is used in everyday speech. When the verb "dāshtan" meaning “to have” is used as an auxiliary verb in the simple present or the simple past - it gives a sense of continuation. Therefore the phrase, "Kār mikonam " (I am working) becomes "Dāram kār mikonam " (I am working right now). |
| Now if someone asks you to come and give him a hand but you are busy preparing a meal, you can say Bebakhshid, Dāram qazā dorost mikonam! which means "Sorry, I am preparing the meal!" Here we are using the present indicative. |
| Now it’s time for Anita’s Advice. |
| In Persian, we often say Emshab che kār mikoni? which means “What are you doing tonight?” |
| You can add the personal pronoun of "im" to the end of the verb, and turn it to to mikonim. Now the meaning will be "What are we doing tonight." |
| For example, if you are with some friends at night and you haven't decided your plans yet, you can ask it. It will sound very natural - Emshab che kār mikonim? |
| In this lesson, we learned how to use the verb kardan and some other present indicative verbs for different situations. |
| Next time we’ll learn another very useful verb, doost dāshtan. |
| I’ll be waiting for you in the next “Persian in 3 minutes” lesson! |
| Khodāfez! |
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