BSEB Matric SIL Persian cheat sheet

Persian has 32 letters and is written right to left; the alphabet order is ا ب پ ت ث ج چ ح خ د ذ ر ز ژ س ش ص ض ط ظ ع غ ف ق ک گ ل م ن و ه ی.

Four letters never join to the following letter: ا د ذ ر ز ژ و; every other letter takes an initial, medial, and final form.

Persian adds four letters to the Arabic base: پ (pe), چ (che), ژ (zhe), گ (gaf); these always join on both sides and appear as پـ ـپـ ـپ.

Short vowels are diacritics: zabar/fatha (َ) = a, zer/kasra (ِ) = e, pesh/damma (ُ) = o; sukun (ْ) marks a consonant with no vowel.

Tanvin (ً ٍ ٌ) appears mostly in Arabic loanwords; in Persian pronunciation an final ً is read as -an (e.g., لطفاً = lotfan).

Hamze (ء) may sit on a carrier: أ إ ؤ ئ; word-final ه with hamze (هٔ) marks ezafe, as in خانهٔ من.

The ezafe (kasra of connection) is usually unwritten: کتاب خوب is read ketāb-e khub; it is written as ِ only in fully vocalized text.

Silent و after خ is read as -v- (خواهر = khāhar, خواب = khāb); the letter و itself is read v, u, or ow depending on position.

Common antonym pairs: بزرگ/کوچک (big/small), دور/نزدیک (far/near), سرد/گرم (cold/hot), روشن/تاریک (bright/dark), خوب/بد (good/bad).

Common synonym pairs: شاد/خوشحال (happy), زیبا/قشنگ (beautiful), دوست/رفیق (friend), خانه/منزل (house), بزرگ/بزرگوار in the sense of 'great'.

Family terms: پدر (father), مادر (mother), برادر (brother), خواهر (sister), پسر (son/boy), دختر (daughter/girl), فرزند (child).

Number words 1–10: یک، دو، سه، چهار، پنج، شش، هفت، هشت، نه، ده; 20 = بیست, 100 = صد, 1000 = هزار.

Days: شنبه، یکشنبه، دوشنبه، سهشنبه، چهارشنبه، پنجشنبه، جمعه; the week begins with Saturday (شنبه).

Idioms: دست و پا کردن = 'to scrounge up, arrange'; دلش گرفت = 'he felt sad/lonely'; آب از آب تکان نخورد = 'nothing happened at all'.

Polite formulas: سلام (hello), خداحافظ (goodbye), لطفاً (please), ممنون/متشکرم (thank you), ببخشید (excuse me/sorry).

Persian is SOV: من کتاب را خواندم = 'I read the book'; the object marker را follows a definite direct object.

The ezafe links noun to adjective or possessor: کتابِ نو (new book), خانهٔ پدر (father's house); it is pronounced -e after consonants, -ye after vowels.

Present copula suffixes attach to nominals: -م، -ی، -ست/است، -یم، -ید، -ند, e.g., من دانشآموزم 'I am a student'.

Past simple is built on the past stem: رفتن → رفتم، رفتی، رفت، رفتیم، رفتید، رفتند.

Present simple uses the imperfective prefix می- plus present stem: میروم، میروی، میرود، میرویم، میروید، میروند.

Present stems are irregular and must be memorized: کردن→کن-, دادن→ده-, رفتن→رو-, گفتن→گو-, بودن→هست/باش-.

Future is formed with خواستن auxiliary + past stem: خواهم رفت، خواهی رفت، خواهد رفت (shortened to خوام رفت in speech).

Plural markers: -ها for all nouns (کتابها), -ان mainly for animate/human nouns (مردان، دانشجویان); adjectives agree in number only when nominalized.

Scan the first and last sentences of each paragraph first; in Persian school prose the topic sentence usually opens the paragraph.

Track referents of pronouns او (he/she), آنها (they), این (this), آن (that); Persian drops subject pronouns, so the verb ending identifies the subject.

The را marker signals a definite direct object, so the phrase before را is usually the thing acted upon, not the doer.

Identify the verb at the end of the clause first; Persian clauses are verb-final, so meaning is resolved from the end backward.

Distinguish fact from inference: words like شاید (perhaps), گویا (apparently), احتمالاً (probably) mark uncertainty, not stated fact.

Contextual meaning: a word's sense is fixed by its collocation, e.g., دل in دلگیر (offended) vs دلیر (brave) vs دلتنگی (longing).

Numbers and dates in prose appear in Persian digits ۰۱۲۳۴۵۶۷۸۹; convert them before answering a detail question.

Rudaki (رودکی) is called the father of Persian poetry; his surviving verse is mostly in the khafif meter and celebrates wine, youth, and Bukhara.

Ferdowsi's Shahnameh (شاهنامه) is the national epic, in motaqāreb meter, ending each couplet with a rhyming word - the masnavi form.

Rumi (مولانا) wrote the Masnavi in masnavi form and ghazals collected in the Divan-e Shams; his core themes are love, separation, and union with the Beloved.

Hafez perfected the ghazal; his imagery (wine, cupbearer, tavern, nightingale and rose) is read both literally and as mystical allegory.

Sa'di's Golestan is prose with rhymed prose and verse inserts, and Bustan is entirely verse; both teach practical ethics through anecdote.

Omar Khayyam's quatrains (رباعی) follow the aaba rhyme pattern and treat fate, mortality, and the carpe diem theme.

Core devices: تشبیه (simile), استعاره (metaphor), کنایه (irony/indirect allusion), جناس (paronomasia), ردیف (repeated word after the rhyme), قافیه (rhyme).

A ghazal's first couplet (مطلع) rhymes on both lines; the poet's pen name appears in the final couplet (مقطع/تخلص).

Persian word order SOV must be reversed to SVO for English and Hindi/Urdu; را disappears in translation because English/Hindi mark objects by position or को/ने.

The ezafe is rendered by word order or a possessive: کتابِ احمد = 'Ahmad's book' = 'अहमद की किताब'.

Persian has no grammatical gender; gender in Hindi/Urdu must be chosen from the noun's meaning, e.g., دختر → लड़की (fem.), پسر → लड़का (masc.).

Present perfect (رفتهم) maps to 'have gone' or Hindi 'गया है'; simple past (رفتم) maps to 'I went' or 'मैं गया'.

Persian uses double negatives with هیچکس ... نه to mean 'nobody': هیچکس نیامد = 'nobody came', not 'everybody came'.

Idioms must be translated by sense, not word for word: دل من شکست = 'my heart broke' / 'मेरा दिल टूट गया'.

Short paragraph structure for composition: topic sentence, two supporting sentences, and a closing sentence; keep verbs final and connect clauses with و، اما، چون، بنابراین.