So, this is something new I'm doing to kill time and give myself a reason to stay active on here, and at the same time maybe a little fun thing to do. I'll be teaching you guys Farsi as I learn it to hopefully give myself a better understanding of it by the time I see my dad for the summer.
For anyone who doesn't know what Farsi is, it is the most primarily spoken language in Iran and the second most spoken language in the entire middle east. It is also called Persian, and has some bastardized variations in all the -stan countries (especially Afghanistan and Tajikistan).
History and background aside, let's begin with Farsi greetings and goodbyes.
- salaam is the word for hello.
- This is the similar to Hebrew and other middle-eastern languages.
- khodafez is how you say goodbye.
- If I remember correctly, it literally means 'praise God.'
You can say yes in Farsi by saying baleh and you can say no by saying na.
Now that that you know that, we can begin with some complex stuff.
- haal-e shomaa chetore is how you say how are you?
- You can then reply to this by saying khoobe (good) or bad.
- If you want to be polite, you can say va shomaa?.
Now you know how they feel, but how will they know who the hell you are?
- esm-e man ... ast! where ... is your name means my name is ...
- esm-e man Akrivus ast!
- esm-e shomaa chist? is how you ask what is your name?
Since we got all that down, let's model a little conversation, feel free to reply in the comments in Farsi and ask questions.
- "Salaam refigh (friend), haal-e shomaa chetore?"
- "Khoobe, va shomaa?"
- "Man khoobe, merci! (I'm good, thank you!)"
- "Khahesh mikonam! (You're welcome!)"
- "Man bayad raftan bah bazaar (I have to go to the market), khodafez!"
- "Khodafez!"
I hope you learned something new and if you need help or want to practice your new skills, don't be afraid to use the comments, khodafez!
Today we'll be learning how to use pronouns and possessives, it'll be very easy, believe me. Unlike English pronouns, the spelling of the word doesn't change based on tense, possession, or gender, as seen below.
- man is how you refer to a singular first-person pronoun like I.
- ma is plural of man like we.
- to is you.
- shoma is a more formal way to say you, it is also plural.
- an is how you say he, she, or it, or they.
- anha is plural of those.
- ishan is an honorary way to say them too, and also acts as a plural.
Now that we have pronouns out of the way we can get to possessions. In Farsi, you end a noun with these endings to make them possessive, for example:
- -am makes it possessed by man or I.
- -amun makes it possessed by ma or we.
- -at makes it possessed by to or you.
- -atun makes it possessed by shoma or you all.
- -as makes it possessed by an or he/she/it.
- -asun makes it possessed by anha or they.
To make a noun plural added -ha to the end before the other suffixes.
- If you're refering to a person, you should probably add -an.
I hope that was good for today's lesson, if you have any questions or wish to practice, take them down to the comments and I'll reply as soon as I can!