BSEB Matric SIL Persian flashcards

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

Persian letter count

The Persian alphabet has 32 letters, written right to left, beginning with ا and ending with ی. It adds four letters to the Arabic base: پ, چ, ژ, گ.

Non-joining letters

Seven letters never connect to the following letter: ا د ذ ر ز ژ و. They show only isolated and final forms, so a following letter starts in its initial form.

Short vowel diacritics

Zabar (َ) reads a, zer (ِ) reads e, and pesh (ُ) reads o. Sukun (ْ) marks a vowelless consonant. These marks are usually omitted in adult text.

Ezafe construction

The ezafe is an unstressed -e (or -ye after a vowel) linking a noun to an adjective or possessor: کتابِ نو 'new book', خانهٔ من 'my house'. It is normally left unwritten.

Persian digits

Persian uses its own numeral shapes: ۰ ۱ ۲ ۳ ۴ ۵ ۶ ۷ ۸ ۹. Textbooks print them in prose and dates, so convert them to 0–9 before computing an answer.

Silent vav rule

After خ the letter و is silent: خواهر reads khāhar and خواب reads khāb. Elsewhere و may be read as v, u, or ow, as in تو, نور, and نوروز.

Common antonym pairs

Frequent exam opposites include بزرگ/کوچک (big/small), دور/نزدیک (far/near), سرد/گرم (cold/hot), روشن/تاریک (bright/dark), and خوب/بد (good/bad).

Common synonym pairs

Frequent synonym sets are شاد/خوشحال (happy), زیبا/قشنگ (beautiful), دوست/رفیق (friend), خانه/منزل (house), and کار/عمل (work/deed).

Family vocabulary

Core kinship words are پدر (father), مادر (mother), برادر (brother), خواهر (sister), پسر (son, boy), دختر (daughter, girl), and فرزند (child).

Persian numbers one to ten

یک، دو، سه، چهار، پنج، شش، هفت، هشت، نه، ده. Beyond these: بیست (20), صد (100), هزار (1000), and میلیون (million).

Days of the week

شنبه، یکشنبه، دوشنبه، سهشنبه، چهارشنبه، پنجشنبه، جمعه. The week starts on شنبه (Saturday), and جمعه (Friday) is the weekly holiday.

Idiom: del-am gereft

دلم گرفت literally means 'my heart seized' and idiomatically means 'I felt sad or lonely'. It is not about physical pain and must not be translated literally.

Polite expressions

سلام (hello), خداحافظ (goodbye), لطفاً (please), ممنون or متشکرم (thank you), and ببخشید (excuse me, sorry). These open and close most textbook dialogues.

SOV word order

Persian clauses place the verb last: من کتاب را خواندم means 'I read the book'. The doer comes first, the object next, and the verb closes the clause.

Object marker ra

را follows a definite direct object: کتاب را دیدم 'I saw the book'. It is not a preposition and never marks the subject, so it is left untranslated.

Present copula suffixes

The verb 'to be' attaches directly to nominals: -م, -ی, -ست/است, -یم, -ید, -ند. Thus من دانشآموزم means 'I am a student'.

Past simple formation

Take the past stem and add personal endings: رفتن gives رفتم، رفتی، رفت، رفتیم، رفتید، رفتند. The third person singular has no ending.

Present simple formation

Add the prefix می- to the present stem plus endings: میروم، میروی، میرود، میرویم، میروید، میروند. The prefix marks habitual or ongoing present action.

Irregular present stems

Present stems must be memorized: کردن→کن-, دادن→ده-, رفتن→رو-, گفتن→گو-, بودن→هست/باش-, دیدن→بین-. They do not derive predictably from the infinitive.

Future tense with khastan

Future uses the auxiliary خواستن plus the past stem: خواهم رفت، خواهی رفت، خواهد رفت. Colloquial speech shortens خواهم to خوام.

Plural markers

-ها pluralizes any noun (کتابها) and is the default. -ان mainly marks human or animate nouns (مردان، دانشجویان) and is far less productive.

Resolving clauses from the end

Because Persian is verb-final, read the last word of a clause first to identify the action, then assign subject and object. This prevents mistaking را-phrases for subjects.

Hedging words in prose

شاید (perhaps), گویا (apparently), احتمالاً (probably), and به نظر میرسد (it seems) signal the writer's uncertainty. A detail question cannot treat such clauses as stated fact.

Dropped subject pronouns

Persian usually omits subject pronouns; the verb ending identifies the subject. رفتم is 'I went' and رفتند is 'they went', so tracing pronouns requires reading verb endings.

Contextual meaning of del

دل means 'heart' but shifts with collocation: دلگیر means 'offended', دلیر means 'brave', and دلتنگی means 'longing'. Meaning is fixed by the compound, not the single word.

Ferdowsi and Shahnameh

Ferdowsi composed the Shahnameh, the Persian national epic, in motaqāreb meter. It uses the masnavi form, with each couplet rhyming independently, and covers Iran's mythical and historical kings.

Rumi and Masnavi

Rumi wrote the Masnavi in rhymed couplets and ghazals collected in the Divan-e Shams. His central themes are love, separation, and reunion with the Beloved.

Hafez and the ghazal

Hafez perfected the ghazal, a lyric of five to fifteen couplets. His wine, cupbearer, and nightingale imagery is read both literally and as mystical allegory.

Sa'di's Golestan

Sa'di's Golestan mixes rhymed prose with inserted verses and teaches ethics through anecdotes; his Bustan is entirely verse. Both are staples of the Persian syllabus.

Rubai rhyme pattern

The rubai is a four-line quatrain rhyming aaba, the third line usually unrhymed. Omar Khayyam's quatrains use it for themes of fate, mortality, and carpe diem.

Ghazal matla and maqta

In a ghazal the opening couplet (مطلع) rhymes on both lines, and later couplets rhyme only on the second line. The poet's pen name appears in the final couplet (مقطع).

Translating the ezafe

The ezafe becomes possession or word order in the target language: کتابِ احمد is 'Ahmad's book' in English and अहमद की किताब in Hindi. It is never translated as a separate word.

Persian has no gender

Persian nouns and adjectives carry no grammatical gender. Hindi or Urdu gender must be supplied from meaning: دختر is लड़की (feminine) and پسر is लड़का (masculine).