Odisha BSE HSC Persian (Third Language) cheat sheet

Persian reads right-to-left; the ezafe (unstressed -e) links nouns to adjectives and possessors: ketāb-e sabz = 'the green book'.

Verbs normally stand at the end of the clause; the first content word of a sentence is often the topic, not the subject.

Skim for the opening formula and closing formula first: many unseen passages begin with a proverb or a quoted line and end with a moral (natije).

Identify the passage type from markers: past-tense narrative chains (-d endings) signal story; present-tense generic statements signal expository prose.

Unknown words: strip the prefix/suffix (be-, na-, -hā, -i, -gar) and match the bare root; the root usually carries the core meaning.

Pronoun reference question: scan backwards for the nearest matching noun in number and animacy; Persian often omits the subject pronoun entirely.

Inference items are answered only from stated facts plus one logical step; reject options that need outside knowledge.

Title/main-idea items: choose the option covering the whole passage, not one vivid detail repeated in the text.

Theme questions are answered with an abstract noun phrase (e.g. 'value of effort', 'harm of hypocrisy'), not with a plot summary.

Character judgement must be supported by an action or a quoted line from the prescribed text; name the action, then the trait.

Distinguish author, narrator, and central character: in first-person moral tales the narrator often is not the author.

Comprehension items on prescribed prose usually test cause-effect: why a character acted, what consequence followed.

Moral/didactic prose of this syllabus typically contrasts two characters (wise/foolish, generous/greedy) to carry the message.

Sequence questions: order events by the narrative conjunctions (avval, pas, ba'd, dar entehā) rather than by paragraph position.

Quotation items ask for the speaker and the occasion; record both whenever a line is memorised.

Vocabulary in context: a prescribed word may carry a technical or archaic sense; check the sentence, not the dictionary first gloss.

A bayt is one couplet of two hemistichs (mesrā'); count lines by couplets, not by printed rows.

Radif = the identical word/phrase repeated after the rhyme at each line end; qāfiye = the rhyme letter/sound before the radif.

Tashbih (simile) uses cho/chu, mesl-e, mānand-e; esti'āre (metaphor) drops the comparator; both are tested by naming tenor and vehicle.

Tashkhis (personification) attributes human action to a non-human (flower laughing, wind complaining).

Moral poetry (pand-nāme style) states advice in the first hemistich and its reason/result in the second.

Theme of a lyric ghazal is usually love, longing, or the beloved's cruelty; do not read mystical meaning unless the text signals it.

Metre recognition: identify the repeated syllable pattern of one bayt and check that the next bayt scans identically.

Word order in verse is inverted for metre and rhyme; restore prose order (subject–object–verb) before translating.

Past simple: root + -am, -i, -∅, -im, -id, -and (raftam, rafii, raft, raftim, raftid, raftand).

Present simple: prefix mi- + present stem + personal endings; negated with ne-/na- and no mi- (nemiravam, naravam).

Present stem is not predictable from the infinitive; learn pairs: kardan/kon-, raftan/rav-, dādan/deh-, budan/bāsh-.

Past participle = infinitive minus -an plus -e (karde, rafte); used with shodan for passive and with dāshtan/ast for perfect.

Plural: animate nouns take -ān/-hā, inanimate normally -hā; Arabic broken plurals occur in prescribed vocabulary.

Ezafe chain: every noun–adjective or noun–possessor link needs -e; the last noun carries the possessive suffix (-am, -at, -ash).

Pronouns: man, to, ū, mā, shomā, ānhā; enclitic forms -am, -at, -ash, -emān, -etān, -eshān attach to nouns, verbs, prepositions.

Particles: rā marks definite direct object; dar/be/az/bā take the object; ke is relative pronoun or complementiser; hami, agar, tā, chon are common connectives.

Canonical order: subject – (object + rā) – adverbial/prepositional phrase – verb; the verb is final in unmarked prose.

rā follows only a definite or specific object; an indefinite object (without rā) is incorporated into the verb phrase.

Copula: hast/hastam for existence and emphasis, ast for simple predication; the clitic -e (colloquial) is not used in formal prose.

Relative clause introduced by ke follows its head noun; the resumptive pronoun inside the clause refers back to the head.

Compound verbs (kardan, shodan, dāshtan, zadan, khordan) carry meaning in the preverb; the object of the preverb precedes the light verb.

Conditional: agar + past/present in the protasis, present or past in the apodosis; unreal condition uses past continuous (miraftam) in both clauses.

Reported speech: ke + clause; tense usually stays unchanged, but pronouns shift to the reporter's viewpoint.

Negation placement: na-/ne- on the verb, hich/hargez for 'never/any', and double negation is standard and not an error.

Common idiom: dast-e kasi rā gereftan = to help someone; del-am gereft = I feel fed up; sar-am shod = I got a headache.

Compound with del: deltang (homesick), delkhosh (happy), delgir (sad), delbaste (attached); the second element fixes the meaning.

Polysemy: sar = head, top, beginning, end; choose the sense from the following preposition or ezafe complement.

Arabic-derived abstract nouns (elm, sabr, adab, hekmat) appear in prescribed prose; their plural and construct forms follow Arabic patterns.

Collocations to memorise as units: qadam zadan (to walk), qarār gozāshtan (to arrange), tamāshā kardan (to look at/enjoy).

Idioms are not translated word-for-word into Odia/English; give the equivalent sense, then the literal image if asked.

Antonym pairs tested in this syllabus: sāde/pechide, dāneshmand/nādān, sakhāvati/khodkhāh, omid/nāomidi.

Register: literary words (foruzān, khoshā) in verse vs neutral prose words (rowshan, nik) - match the register when answering vocabulary items.

Translate clause by clause, moving the final Persian verb to the correct position in Odia/English word order.

Keep ezafe links as possessive or adjectival phrases: ketāb-e u = 'his book', not 'book of he'.

rā is not translated as a word; render the object as definite ('the book') or mark it by word order.

Compound verbs become single verbs in translation: qarār dādan = 'to place/decide', not 'arrangement to give'.

Idioms: translate the sense, and if the item asks for literal meaning, give the image separately.

Persian has no grammatical gender and no article; supply 'a/the' in English only where the target grammar requires it.

Odia/English into Persian: build subject–object–verb order, add rā for a definite object, and choose the infinitive stem before conjugating.

Proper names and honorifics (Hazrat, Ostād, Jenāb) are transliterated, not translated; keep the Persian title order.