Learn about the difference between the perfect and imperfect tense in Persian
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Intro |
|---|
| Antoni: What is the difference between the perfect and imperfect tense in Persian? |
| Negar: And how do you know which one to use? |
| Antoni: At PersianPod101.com, we hear these questions often. Imagine the following situation: Behrooz Behzadi and Mark Lee talk about pizza. Behrooz Behzadi says, |
| "Have you tried this pizza?" |
| Behrooz Behzadi: (in pitzaa ro emtehaan karde-i?) |
| این پیتزا رو امتحان کرده ای؟ |
| Dialogue |
| Behrooz Behzadi: (in pitzaa ro emtehaan karde-i?) |
| این پیتزا رو امتحان کرده ای؟ |
| Mark Lee: (na, ammaa man dirooz vaghti mosaabeqe-ye football ro mididam, pitzaa khordam.) |
| نه، اما من دیروز وقتی مسابقه فوتبال رو می‌دیدم، پیتزا خوردم. |
| Antoni: Once more with the English translation. |
| Behrooz Behzadi: (in pitzaa ro emtehaan karde-i?) |
| این پیتزا رو امتحان کرده ای؟ |
| Antoni: "Have you tried this pizza?" |
| Mark Lee: (na, ammaa man dirooz vaghti mosaabeqe-ye football ro mididam, pitzaa khordam.) |
| نه، اما من دیروز وقتی مسابقه فوتبال رو می‌دیدم، پیتزا خوردم. |
| Antoni: "No, but, yesterday, when I was watching the football match, I ate pizza." |
Lesson focus |
| Antoni: In this lesson, you will be learning about the difference between the perfect and the imperfect tenses in Persian. We will be looking at how the verbs conjugate for these in the present and past tenses, seeing as the future tense, in Persian, is basically the present tense with a future meaning added to it. If you are an English speaker, or if you have a decent understanding of English grammar, you will be glad to hear that, for the most part, the perfect and imperfect tenses, in Persian, correspond quite closely to English in terms of how they are constructed. |
| Before we begin looking at examples, let's quickly talk about what is meant by the perfect and imperfect tenses. The perfect tense is quite easy to understand because the word "perfect" in this term refers to the fact that there is a sense of completeness to the sentences that are constructed in this tense. Consider this Persian sentence in the present perfect, for instance: |
| Negar: (shomaa kaaghazdivaari-haa raa avaz kardeid.) |
| شما کاغذ دیواری‌ها را عوض کرده اید. |
| Antoni: It translates to "You have changed the wallpapers." which, as you can hear, describes a completed or "perfect" action. |
| By the same logic, the word "imperfect" denotes a sentence that carries a sense of being "incomplete" or "unfinished." Here's an example of the past imperfect being used in Persian: |
| Negar: (miraftam) |
| می‌رفتم |
| Antoni: This means "I was going" and, in this case, the phrase leaves you wondering what comes next. There is a sense of incompleteness or "imperfectness" to it. |
| When it comes to constructing the perfect tense in Persian, there is a general rule that can be applied and that is to use the past participle. In Persian, the past participle is constructed by adding the letter |
| Negar: (he) |
| ه |
| Antoni: to the past stem of the verbs, whether the verb is simple, complex, or compound. We will discuss this shortly. |
| And that's enough explaining for now. Let's proceed to look at some examples of the perfect and imperfect tenses in Persian by starting with the dialogue you heard earlier. |
| [Recall 1] |
| Antoni: Do you remember how Behrooz Behzadi asks "Have you tried this pizza?" |
| (pause 4 seconds) |
| Negar as Behrooz Behzadi: (in pitzaa ro emtehaan karde-i?) |
| این پیتزا رو امتحان کرده ای؟ |
| Antoni: This question is in the present perfect tense. |
| Negar: (maazi-ye naqli) |
| ماضی نقلی |
| Antoni: In Persian, the present perfect is formed by adding the appropriate personal ending to the past participle. This ending defines the subject as singular or plural, or first, second, or third person. The endings are: |
| Negar: (am, i, ast, im, id, and) ام، ای، است، ایم، اید، اند |
| Antoni: If you want to know more about these, you can check out the table in the lesson notes for lesson 8 of our Beginner series of lessons. Let's now look at the question in more detail. In particular, we'll look at the conjugation of the verb, which was: |
| Negar: (emtehaan karde-i) |
| امتحان کرده ای |
| Antoni: This was based on the past stem |
| Negar: (emtehaan kard) |
| امتحان کرد |
| Antoni: which in turn was based on the infinitive |
| Negar: (emtehaan kardan) |
| امتحان کردن |
| Antoni: As you can hear, the past stem was formed by omitting the letter |
| Negar: (noon) |
| ن |
| Antoni: from the end of the infinitive. After that, in order to form the past participle, the letter |
| Negar: (he) ه |
| Antoni: was added at the end of the past stem. It was mentioned earlier that this is how the past participle is formed in Persian. The verb, at this point, would sound like this: |
| Negar: (emtehaan karde) |
| امتحان کرده. |
| Antoni: Since we need the second person singular conjugation here, the correct suffix for our verb is |
| Negar: (i) |
| ای |
| Antoni: and this is how we end up with: |
| Negar: (emtehaan karde-i) |
| امتحان کرده ای |
| Antoni: Just for your information, an example of a different personal ending with this verb would be the first person ending, which is |
| Negar: (-am) |
| ام |
| Antoni: Our verb would then sound like this: |
| Negar: (emtehaan karde-am) امتحان کرده ام |
| Antoni: Now that we've had a look at the present perfect tense in Persian, let's discuss the other perfect tense which is, of course, the past perfect. |
| Negar: (maazi-ye ba'id) |
| ماضی بعید |
| Antoni: In Persian, the past perfect is formed by adding the past simple of the auxiliary verb "to be" to the past participle. In order to make it easy to understand, we will look at an example. Let's imagine we are in a situation where we want to say "I had gone" in Persian. To form this sentence, the past simple of the Persian for the verb "to be" is needed for first person singular, which is: |
| Negar: (boodam) |
| بودم |
| Antoni: and we will need the past participle of the verb "to go," which is |
| Negar: (rafte) |
| رفته |
| Antoni: Then, just add the pronoun and we have the past perfect sentence meaning "I had gone," which sounds like this: |
| Negar: (man rafte boodam) |
| من رفته بودم. |
| Antoni: Again, we won't discuss all the possible versions of this tense with the different pronouns, but, just for the sake of consistency, let's look at this same construction with the Persian word for the pronoun "you." This is how it would sound: |
| Negar: (to rafte boodi) |
| تو رفته بودی. |
| Antoni: Now we've discussed both tenses in which the perfect is used. Next, let's look at both the past and present forms of the imperfect, but, first, let's listen to the second half of our dialogue. |
| [Recall 2] |
| Antoni: Do you remember how Mark Lee says "No, but yesterday when I was watching the football match, I ate pizza?" |
| (pause 4 seconds) |
| Negar as Mark Lee: (na, ammaa man dirooz vaghti mosaabeqe-ye football ro mididam, pitzaa khordam.) |
| نه، اما من دیروز وقتی مسابقه فوتبال رو می‌دیدم، پیتزا خوردم. |
| Antoni: Here, we have a compound sentence with two verbs. The first verb |
| Negar: (mididam) |
| می‌دیدم |
| Antoni: which is a past imperfect verb |
| Negar: (maazi-ye estemraari) |
| ماضی استمراری |
| Antoni: and the second one |
| Negar: (khordam) |
| خوردم |
| Antoni: is a simple past verb |
| Negar: (maazi-ye saade) |
| ماضی ساده |
| Antoni: We won't be analyzing the simple past tense here but will be talking about the imperfect past. |
| As was mentioned earlier in this lesson, the imperfect occurs in sentences where there is a sense of something being incomplete or unfinished. In our dialogue, we don't know if Mark Lee completed the act of watching the football match or not since he said "I was watching:" |
| Negar: (mididam) |
| می‌دیدم |
| Antoni: In order to understand how the imperfect past is constructed in Persian, let's take a look at this same example and break it down. |
| First of all, we have the prefix |
| Negar: (mi-) می |
| Antoni: This prefix is always used in the past imperfect, and it is attached to the past stem, which, in this case, is |
| Negar: (did) دید |
| Antoni: The past stem then takes the past ending, which is |
| Negar: (-am) |
| -َم |
| Antoni: This indicates that the first person singular is being used. The final result, again, was |
| Negar: (mididam) می‌دیدم |
| Antoni: This, as you will no doubt recall, means "I was watching." Now, let's try the same construction with the second person. It sounds like this: |
| Negar: (mididi) می‌دیدی |
| Antoni: This example means "you were watching" or "you were seeing" and, as you can hear, the ending was different this time because the second person singular was being used. |
| As you progress with your learning of Persian, you will notice that the past imperfect in Persian does not correspond exactly with the past imperfect in English. Instead, if you want to create an English equivalent, you have to use contextual references and a combination of different tenses. Here is an example of a sentence in the past imperfect. It means "He always wanted to learn English:" |
| Negar: (hamishe mikhaast engelisi yaad begirad.) |
| همیشه می‌خواست انگلیسی یاد بگیرد. |
| Antoni: Before we begin with our discussion of the present imperfect, please do take note that the verb |
| Negar: (boodan), |
| بودن |
| Antoni: which means "to be," is generally not conjugated in the past imperfect tense. Instead, you should use the past simple form of the verb. The same is true of the verb |
| Negar: (daashtan) |
| داشتن |
| Antoni: which means "to have" |
| and that brings us to the end of our look at the past imperfect tense. Let's move on now to the present imperfect tense. |
| You'll be glad to hear that, in order to form the present imperfect tense, we also use the prefix |
| Negar: (mi) |
| می |
| Antoni: This is attached to the present stem, and the present ending, with which you are probably now familiar with, is attached to this. Let's hear an example of the present imperfect in Persian: |
| Negar: (mibandam) |
| می‌بندم |
| Antoni: Here, the present stem is |
| Negar: (band), |
| بند |
| Antoni: which means "to close," and the ending is the first person singular |
| Negar: (-am) |
| -َم. |
| Antoni: Let's look at the same construction, but this time with the second person singular ending |
| Negar: (mibandi) |
| می‌بندی. |
| Antoni: At this point, it's important to mention that, when the verb stem ends with a vowel, a |
| Negar: (-y) |
| ی |
| Antoni: is inserted between it and the personal ending. Let's look at an example using the verb stem meaning "to say." The stem sounds like this: |
| Negar: (goo) |
| گو |
| Antoni: In order to form the sentence "I say," we then add the prefix and the correct personal ending. The final result sounds like this: |
| Negar: (migooyam) |
| می‌گویم. |
| Antoni: As with the past imperfect, there are two verbs that are not conjugated in the present perfect either. Just as a reminder, these verbs are: |
| Negar: (boodan) |
| بودن |
| Antoni: which means "to be," and |
| Negar: (daashtan) |
| داشتن |
| Antoni: which means "to have." |
| Now, if you recall, the past imperfect in Persian does not have a direct equivalent in English. This is also true of the present imperfect. When it comes to this tense, in Persian, the closest correspondence with English is probably the simple present. Take, this construction, for instance |
| Negar: (miravam) |
| می‌روم. |
| Antoni: It can be translated into English as "I go," "I'm going," or "I will go." The only way to know which tense is being used is to take one's cue from the contextual clues. Here's an example in which the other words in the sentence let us know what tense is being used: |
| Negar: (har rooz be piaaderavi miravam.) |
| هر روز به پیاده‌روی می‌روم. |
| Antoni: This means "I go walking every day," |
| and that concludes this part of the lesson. Well done for making it so far. Now you know a bit more about the perfect and the imperfect tenses in Persian. |
| [Summary] |
| Antoni: In this lesson, you learned that, in Persian, the perfect and imperfect tenses are constructed in a way that is quite similar to English. However, there is no direct correspondence between them. If you want to construct the English equivalent of the Persian perfect and imperfect tenses, you have to use contextual clues and a mix of tenses. That said, these tenses are relatively easy to form in Persian as long as you know which prefixes, stems, and personal endings to use. |
| Briefly, in Persian, the present perfect is formed by adding the appropriate personal ending to the past participle, and the past perfect is formed by adding the past simple of the auxiliary verb "to be" to the past participle. |
| In order to form the past imperfect, we attach the prefix |
| Negar: (mi-) |
| می |
| Antoni: to the past stem and the appropriate personal ending. The same prefix is used for the present imperfect, and it is attached to the present stem and the present ending. |
| Expansion/Contrast (Optional) |
| Antoni: One last thing that should probably be mentioned is that, if you ever see, in written form, words like |
| Negar: (mibaasham) |
| می‌باشم |
| Antoni: or |
| Negar: (mibaashi), |
| می‌باشی |
| Antoni: then you have encountered a rarely used form of the verb |
| Negar: (boodan), |
| بودن |
| Antoni: which, as you know, means "to be." The form we are talking about is |
| Negar: (baash) |
| باش |
| Antoni: which is the imperfect form of the verb. It is only ever found in certain writings and should actually be avoided. Remember to use the present simple form instead. |
Outro |
| Antoni: Do you have any more questions? We're here to answer them! |
| Negar: خداحافظ (khodaahaafez) |
| Antoni: See you soon! |
| Credits: Negar (Persian, Iran), Antoni (English, synthetic voice) |
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