ASSEB HSLC Elective Persian flashcards

32 cards. Read the term and the definition here. The deck at the top of this page is optional.

ezāfe construction

An unstressed -e linking a noun to a following modifier, possessor or adjective: ketāb-e now. It is usually unwritten but appears as -ye after vowels and silent h.

ra (را)

A postposition marking a definite direct object: ketāb rā xāndam, 'I read the book'. It is not translated into English and is dropped with indefinite objects.

SOV order

Neutral Persian clause order is subject–object–verb. The verb comes last and carries person, number and tense, so the final word of a clause often identifies the whole clause's meaning.

pronominal enclitics

Bound pronouns -am, -at, -aš, -emān, -etān, -ešān attach to nouns as possessives (ketābam 'my book'), to verbs as objects or subjects, and to prepositions.

past simple formation

Past stem plus personal endings: raft-am, raft-i, raft, raft-im, raft-id, raft-and. The past stem is unpredictable and must be learned with each verb.

present stem

The stem used with mi- and personal endings for the present: mi-rav-am 'I go'. It differs from the infinitive and must be memorised separately for every verb.

māzi-e naqli (perfect)

Past participle plus copula: rafte-am 'I have gone', rafte ast 'he has gone'. It reports a past event whose result is still relevant at the moment of speaking.

subjunctive (eltezāmi)

A verb form without mi- used after bāyad, šāyad, ke and tā: bebīn-am, berav-ad. It expresses wish, obligation, purpose or possibility rather than fact.

passive with šodan

Past participle plus forms of šodan: nevešte šod 'was written'. The agent, when stated, follows tavassot-e ('by means of').

plural markers -hā and -ān

-hā is the general plural for things (ketāb-hā); -ān is used for animate and formal reference (dānešmand-ān). Arabic broken plurals appear in learned vocabulary.

compound verb (fe'l-e morakkab)

A noun or adjective plus a light verb forming one predicate: kār kardan 'to work', entezār kešidan 'to wait'. Negation and person fall on the light verb.

lesson genre identification

Prescribed prose lessons fall into short story (dāstān), memoir (xātere), essay (maqāle) and historical narrative. The genre determines whether questions target plot, character or argument.

narrative arc terms

Persian story analysis names the opening situation, the conflict (gereh), its resolution (oqde-goshāyi) and the moral (natije). Answers should locate each stage explicitly.

character evidence rule

A character trait is stated in one word and then supported by a specific action or quoted line from the lesson. Assertion without textual evidence earns no marks.

theme statement

A single abstract sentence naming the lesson's central idea, such as 'effort is worth more than inherited wealth'. It is not a plot summary or a list of events.

contextual vocabulary

A word may carry a figurative sense inside the lesson, e.g. del 'heart' meaning 'courage'. Answers should give the meaning as used in the text, not the first dictionary gloss.

aruz (prosody)

The quantitative metre of Persian verse: a fixed pattern of short and long syllables. Each line (beyt) divides into two hemistichs (mesrā').

qāfiye and radif

Qāfiye is the rhyme consonant and vowel at line end; radif is a word or phrase repeated after the rhyme throughout the poem and is not counted as part of it.

tashbih and este'āre

Tashbih is explicit simile with words such as čon, mesl-e, hamečon. Este'āre is metaphor, where the comparison word is dropped and the image is asserted directly.

kenāye

A metonymic allusion where the literal image implies a further meaning, as when 'his hand is long' means 'he steals'. The literal sense is not intended.

qazal form

A lyrical form of usually five to seven couplets with a single rhyme and radif throughout, treating love, wine or mystical longing. The first couplet rhymes both hemistichs.

masnavi form

A narrative or didactic poem rhyming aa, bb, cc within couplets, each couplet independent in rhyme. It suits long stories with moral content.

erfāni reading

The mystical interpretation of classical verse: earthly love and wine stand for divine love, fanā for self-annihilation, tavakkol for trust in God. Appreciation should give both levels.

formal letter opening

A Persian formal letter opens with besmellāh or bā salām va ehterām and closes with bā tashakkor or bā ehterām-e farāvān followed by the signature.

darkhāst (application)

An application states its purpose in the first paragraph, gives supporting facts in the second, and ends with a request for action plus thanks, in formal register throughout.

formal register markers

Formal Persian uses šomā, farmudid, xāhesmandam and full verb endings. Colloquial contractions such as migam or nemidunam belong to spoken style and are avoided in writing.

Persian punctuation

Persian uses ، for comma, ؛ for semicolon, ؟ for question mark, and « » for quotation. The full stop is the ordinary dot, and the direction of writing is right to left.

ezāfe in translation

Ezāfe has no single English equivalent; render it with 'of', a possessive, or adjective-noun order: ketāb-e u becomes 'his book' or 'the book of him'.

idiom translation

Idioms translate as whole units, not word by word: del-am gereft means 'I felt sad', never 'my heart took'. Literal rendering of idioms is the commonest translation error.

Persian alphabet size

The Persian alphabet has 32 letters. Four of them, پ چ ژ گ, are Persian additions to the Arabic alphabet and carry the sounds p, č, ž, g.

non-joining letters

Seven letters, ا د ذ ر ز ژ و, never connect to the following letter, so the next letter takes its initial or isolated form. All other letters join both ways.

hamze spelling

Hamze sits on alef, vāv or ye: مأمور, مؤمن, مسئله. The seat is chosen by the surrounding vowels, and the pronunciation remains a glottal stop.