I. VOCABULARY-- WRITE IN PERSIAN SCRIPT

II. EXERCISES [Lesson One]

(chirâgh-râ) biman bidin. 6. in chi(y)ih (chih ast)? 7. sandali injâ nis (nist). 8. kâghaz unjâs (ânjâst, ânjâ ast). 9. in nah mizih (miz ast) nah sandali. 10. injâ kujâs (kujâst, kujâ ast)?

1. Please give that chair to me. 2. This is the chair. 3. The table is here. 4. What is this? 5. Where is the lampshade? 6. Is this the lamp? 7. No, this is not that lamp. 8. Please come here! 9. The chair is not there. 10. Excuse me, would you please tell me where this place is?

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I. VOCABULARY-- WRITE IN PERSIAN SCRIPT

II. EXERCISES [Lesson Two]

1. Do you know Persian? 2. Yes, I do [literally: Iknow] . 3. What do they call this in Persian? 4. What is the meaning of 'mutishakkiram'? 5. I am an American. 6. I am not Iranian. 7. Excuse me, would you please tell me where Bahram is? 8. How are you? 9. Good-bye. 10. Give me a pomegranate.

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I. VOCABULARY -- WRITE IN PERSIAN SCRIPT

II. EXERCISES [Lesson Three]

1. You said, "your name is Babak." 2. My name is not Babak. 3. Our house (home) is not on Bahar Avenue. 4. It is neither far nor near. 5. Please let's go. 6. I am busy today. 7. How about tomorrow? 8. No, we will go another day. 9. All right, call me tomorrow. 10. O.K. Bye bye (for) now.

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I. VOCABULARY -- WRITE IN PERSIAN SCRIPT

II. EXERCISES [Lesson Four]

1. It is 8:30. 2. It doesn't matter . 3. We will go by taxi. 4. Did you eat [have your] dinner? 5. No, I did not, how about you? 6. I did not eat either. 7. Is there a good restaurant here (lit. to be found here)? 8. Yes, but it is a little far. 9. What is the name of the restaurant? 10. The name of the restaurant is Salamat.

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I. VOCABULARY -- WRITE IN PERSIAN SCRIPT

II. EXERCISES [Lesson Five]

1. Who is it? 2. Somebody is knocking at the door (Lit. they knock at the door). 3. It's me, Kavih. 4. What would you like to drink -- coffee or tea? 5. Tea please. 6. Do you take (eat i.e. drink) milk or lemon? 7. Neither, just plain tea. 8. The sugar is here, help yourself. 9. This is the sugar bowl. 10. Thanks, I would like (please pour) just one spoon of sugar.

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Izafih , which is rarely shown in writing, is a possesive or attributive link between a noun or a pronoun and an adjective or between two nouns. It is represented by -i or -yi and is used frequently in Persian as in ....................shagird-i khub, ‘a good student'; .......................khanih-yi ma, ‘our house'; .....................aqa-yi tihrani, ‘Mr. Tehrani'; .........................rah-i shiraz, ‘road to Shiraz’; ...............................danishgah-i tihran , ‘Tehran University'. Izafih can also link more than two words as in ......................................................istgah-i utuwbus-i khiyaban-i bahar, 'bus station for Bahar Avenue'.

II. CONJUGATION OF VERBS

Verb conjugation in Persian is quite simple. This is true even though there is formal written and informal colloquial forms of the verbs. What makes the verb conjugation simple is the personal ending which does the work of a pronoun subject. The personal endings are exactly the same for both past and present except for the third person singular in the simple past which remains the basic form with no ending.

Given the infinitive, one finds the past stem by crossing off -an. The past stem is identical with the third person singular. Thus the past stem of the verb budan 'to be' is bud, the past stem of the verb guftan 'to say' is guft.

The present stem can be found by taking any person of the present tense of the verb and dropping the prefix 'mi' and the personal ending; e.g. in miravam 'I go' rav is the present stem and in mibinand, 'they see', bin is the present stem. Since for the present tenses of the verbs budan 'to be' and dashtan 'to have' the prefix 'mi' is not used, we drop the personal endings only. Thus in hastam, ‘I am’,'hast' remains as the present stem and in daram, ‘I have’, dar is the present stem.

The imperative, conditional, and subjunctive are formed by adding 'bi' as a prefix to the present stem and adding the personal endings, e.g. bibakhshid, 'pardon!', bibinid, 'see!'. The informal form of the imperative in almost all cases consists of the prefix 'bi' plus the present stem with no personal ending e.g. bibin 'see!', bikhuwr 'eat!’, bigu, ‘say!'.

For the negation of the imperative 'na' replaces 'bi' e.g. naravid 'don't go'; nakunid 'don't do!’. The same is true for the subjunctive and conditional.

The following tables show the method of conjugating verbs in their past, present/future, and imperative/conditional/subjunctive forms.

A. The Verb ‘to understand’ an example for a regular verb:

Infinitive: fahmid an
Past Stem: fahmid
Present Stem: fahm

Imperative: bifahm!

1. Past Tense: past stem + personal ending, except for the third person singular

2. Present/Future Tense: mi + present stem + personal ending

3. Conditiona/Subjunctive: bi + present stem + personal ending

B. The Verb ‘to be’ an example of an irregular verb:

Infinitive: bud an

Past Stem: bud

Present Stem: hast (bash)

Imperative: bash (bashid)!

1. Past Tense: past stem + personal ending, except for the third person singular

2. Present/Future Tense: present stem + personal ending except for the third person singular

3. Conditional/Subjunctive: bi + present stem + personal ending

C. The Verb ‘to have’ an example for an irregular verb:

Infinitive: dashtan

Past Stem: dasht

Present Stem: dar

Imperative: dashtih bash, dashtih bashid (bidarid)!

1. Past Tense: past stem + personal ending, except for the third person.singular

2. Present/Future Tense: present stem + personal ending

3. Conditional/Subjunctive: Past stem + ih+bash + personal ending

The Simple Past tense is generally used to express an action that happened and was completed in the past.

Rule: Past Stem + personal ending

Example: fahmid + am, i.e. fahmidam, 'I understood’

The Present Tense is either 'simple' that talks about things in general or 'continuous' that talks about something that is happening at the time of speaking. When we say ..................................har ruz kar mikunam, 'I work everyday' we are talking about something which is true in general. But when we say ..................................daram tilifun mikunam, 'I am making a telephone call.’, we are referring to an action that is happening at the time of speaking.

The Present Tenses are also used with a 'future' meaning in many occasions e.g. .....................................farda shab chikar mikunid?, 'What are you doing tomorrow night?' [Literally: Tomorrow night what (work do) you do?]; .................................farda shab kar mikunam, 'I'm working tomorrow night' [Literally: Tomorrow night I do work] or ......................................................sa'at-i chand sinima shuru' mishih?,'What time does the movie begin?'.

The Subjunctive is a subordinate statement which is placed in sequence or in juxtaposition to another statement. These statements are generally used when expressing desire, doubt, possibility, certain hypotheses or when indirectly quoting someone. The general rule for forming a subjunctive is to use the prefix bi- + Present Stem + personal ending. Thus a verb like raftan, ‘to go’ with the present stem rav becomes biravam, biravi, biravad, biravim, biravid, biravand.

The verbs frequently followed by subjuctives are tavanistan, 'to be able to', khwastan, 'to want', fikr kardan, 'to think', umidvar budan, 'to hope', guzashtan, ‘to let’. e.g. :............................khwastam biram, 'I wanted to go'; .................................nazasht biram (naguzasht biravam)', ‘He didn't let me go.'

The present subjunctive is formed by the prefix bi + the present stem + the appropriate ending with the exception of the verb budan, 'to be' in which 'bi' is omitted, i.e.basham, bashi, bashih, bashim, bashid, bashand; e.g.............................................

fikr nimikunam inja bashih 'I do not think he/she/it is here'.

The past subjunctive is formed by the past participle [i.e. past stem + ih] followed by the present subjunctive of the verb budan, 'to be'; e.g. ............................................ fikr nimikunam sarma khuwrdih basham, 'I don't think I have caught cold'.

The compound verbs are made of two or more distinct words. Usually a noun, an adverb, an adjective, or a prepositional phrase with a simple verb are the elements of the compound verbs and they are formed by conjugating the simple verb; e.g....................kar mikunam, 'I work'; .......................kar mikuni, 'You work' which are formed by conjugating the simple verb of the infinitive kar kardan, 'to work'. Other verbs commonly used for compound verbs are shudan, ‘to become’, dashtan, ‘to have’, and dadan’ ‘to give’ as in...................... khub budan, 'to be good';................... payda shudan, 'to be(come) found';....................... kar dashtan, 'to be busy';....................... gush dadan,’'to listen'.

1. The possessives can be formed by attaching ...am, ...it (at), ...ish (ash), ...imun (iman), ...itun (itan), ...ishun (ishan) as the suffixes to the nouns or adjectives e.g............. hal-am, 'my condition';.................. chayitun (chay-itan)), ‘your tea';............................ chatramun (chatr-ha-iman), ‘our umbrellas'.

2. The possessive case is also expressed by the word mal, 'property, possessions, wealth' to which the izafih and a pronoun are added e.g. .................................in chiragh mal-i manih(ast), 'This is my lamp.' [Literally: This lamp (in) possession of mine is.]

3. The izafih .......yi' is often used following a word which ends in a vowel sound or in 'ih' in which 'h' is silent; e.g....................sandali-yi man, 'my chair'; ........................qahvih-yi khub, 'a good coffee'; .................................tu-yi khunih-yi shuma, 'in your house'.

4. The direct object marker    ...ruw (ra) may be connected as a suffix to the possessive endings as follows:

a. ...amuw (am-ra) e.g................................................mizamuw (mizam-ra) bih u dadam,

‘I gave my table to him.'

b. ...ituw (at-ra) e.g.........................................................mizituw (mizat-ra) bih u dadam, 'I gave your (thine) table to him.'

c. ...ishuw (ash-ra) e.g...............................................mizishuw (mizash-ra) bih u dadam, 'I gave her table to him.'

d. ...imunuw (iman-ra) e.g .....................................mizimunuw (miziman-ra) bih u dadam, 'I gave our table to him'.

e. ...itunuw (itan-ra) e.g. ............................................mizitunuw (mizitan-ra) bih u dadam, 'I gave your table to him'.

f. ...ishunuw (ishan-ra) e.g. .................................mizishunuw (mizishan-ra) bih u dadam, 'I gave their table to him.'

1. A verb is called transitive when it passes an action over to an object, e.g...................................Kavih kitab-ra girift, 'Kavih took the book'. When a verb does not pass an action and is limited to the subject or itself it is called intransitive, e.g. ....................Kavih amad, 'Kavih came'.

2. Some verbs are both transitive and intransitive, e.g. the verb.shikastan, 'to break' in ....................................Kavih shishih-ra shikast, 'Kavih broke the glass' is transitive whereas in ................................shishih shikast, .

'The glass broke.’ is intransitive.

In Persian the verb shudan, ‘to become’ changes an active voice to passive e.g. an active statement like ..............................................kilidam ra gum kardam, ’I lost my key.’ changes to ..........................................kilidam gum shud, ‘My key was lost.’

Infinitive Present Stem Imperative

1. kardan kun bikun, bikunin (bikunid)

2. piyda kardan piyda kun piyda kun, piyda kunin (piyda kunid)
3. farmudan farma (farmay) bifarma, bifarmayin (bifarmayid)
4. dadan d, dih (dah) bidih, bidin (bidahid)
5. budan hast (bash) bash, bashin (bibashid)
6. bakhshidan bakhsh bibakhsh, bibakhshin (bibakhshid)
7. danistan dun (dan) bidun, bidunin (bidanid)
8. fahmidan fahm bi fahm, bifahmin (bifahmid)
9. guftan g (guy) bigu or bugu, bigin (biguyid)
10. raftan r (rav) buruw, biravin (biravid)

11. dashtan dar dashtih bash, dashtih bashin
(dashtih bashid, or bidarid)

12. shudan sh (shav) bishuw, bishin (bishavid)

13. piyda shudan piyda sh (shav) piyda shuw, piyda shin (piyda shavid)

or piyda bishuw, p. bishin (p. bishavid)

14. khuwrdan khuwr bukhuwr, bikhuwrin (bikhuwrid)

15. zadan zan bizan, bizanin (bizanid)

16. dar zadan dar zan dar bizan, dar bizanin (dar bizanid)
17. rikhtan riz biriz, birizin (birizid)
18. khwastan khwa (khwah) bikhwah, bikhwayn (bikhwahid)

IX. HOW TO OBTAIN A PRESENT STEM

The present stems of some of the verbs are normally found by omitting the final--tan,--dan or --idan of the infinitive. Thus we have kush for kushtan, 'to kill', avar foravardan, ‘to bring’ , and ris (ras) for risidan (rasidan), 'to arrive'.

XI. EXERCISES, Transliterate and Translate:

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XII. Exercises. Translate the following sentences into Persian.

1. Come in please.

2. What would you like to drink?

3. I drink coffee.

4. Do you take (pour) milk and sugar?

5. No, thank you.

6. When do you go to Iran?

7. Tomorrow night.

8. Are you going to work over there?

9. Yes. I will work with my brother.

10. I want to call him tomorrow at 6 o'clock.