Maharashtra SSC Persian (MSBSHSE) flashcards

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

Non-joining Persian letters

Seven letters - alef, dāl, zāl, re, ze, zhe, vāv - never connect to the following letter, so they appear only in isolated and final forms.

Short vowel diacritics

Fatḥa marks a, kasra marks e, and ẓamma marks o. They are usually omitted in adult writing but appear in textbooks, dictionaries and children's books.

Long vowels in Persian

Alef carries ā, vāv carries u or o, and ye carries i. These letters are written, unlike short vowels, and can also function as consonants.

Homophone letters z, s, t

Persian writes z with four letters, s with three, and t with two. All sound identical in Persian; correct spelling depends on the word's Arabic origin.

Final he as vowel

In final position, he is normally pronounced as a short vowel e or a (خانه = khāne), not as h; it is pronounced h inside or at the start of a word.

Zero-width non-joiner

A spacing mark called nim-fāsele that separates prefixes and suffixes like mi-, -hā and -i from the stem, as in میروم and کتابها.

Definite object marker rā

The postposition rā follows a specific direct object: ketāb-rā didam, I saw the book. It has no equivalent in English and is dropped in translation.

Indefinite suffix -i

Attached to a noun, -i expresses 'a' or 'one': کتابی, a book. With a following modifier the ezāfe appears: یک کتابِ خوب, a good book.

Plural suffixes -hā and -ān

-hā is the general plural for things and is used with inanimates; -ān is restricted mainly to animate nouns, especially people, as in مردان, men.

Ezāfe construction

An unstressed -e linking a noun to a following modifier: possessor, adjective or material. کتابِ نو means the new book; درِ خانه means the door of the house.

Present stem endings

The present indicative adds -am, -i, -ad, -im, -id, -and to the present stem, preceded by mi-: میروم, میروی, میرود, میرویم, میروید, میروند.

Past simple formation

Remove -an from the infinitive to get the past stem (رفتن → رفت) and add the personal endings; the third person singular takes no ending at all.

Future with khāstan

The future uses the present stem of خواستن plus the personal ending, followed by the past stem: خواهم رفت, I will go; خواهد آمد, he will come.

Past participle in -e

The past stem plus -e gives the participle (رفته, gone). With forms of بودن it makes perfect tenses: رفتهام, I have gone; رفته بودم, I had gone.

Persian word order

Neutral order is subject, object, verb, with the verb in final position. The object marker rā and the ezāfe carry the grammatical relations that English shows by position.

Negative verb prefix

The prefix na- (ne- before a vowel or certain stems) negates verbs: میروم, I go; نمیروم, I do not go; رفت, he went; نرفت, he did not go.

Suffix -mand

A productive suffix meaning 'having, endowed with': دانشمند, learned; ثروتمند, wealthy; هنرمند, artist. It turns nouns into adjectives describing possession of a quality.

Prefixes bi- and nā-

Both negate nouns and adjectives: بیگناه, innocent; بیکار, unemployed; نادان, ignorant; ناراضی, dissatisfied. Nā- often carries a stronger or more literary tone.

Compound verbs with kardan

Many verbs are a noun or adjective plus a light verb: کمک کردن, to help; بلند شدن, to get up; گوش دادن, to listen; فراموش کردن, to forget.

Arabic broken plurals

Some Arabic loanwords keep an internal-vowel plural: کتاب → کتب, خبر → اخبار, دلیل → دلایل. These belong to formal and religious registers.

Colloquial contractions

Tehrani speech contracts common forms: میروم becomes میرم, خانه becomes خونه, آن becomes اون, and است becomes the enclitic -e. Formal writing keeps full forms.

Numerals with counted nouns

After a number, the counted noun stays singular and takes no plural suffix: سه کتاب, three books; دو مرد, two men. Adding -hā after a numeral is an error.

Persian idiom: del

دل, literally heart, forms many idioms: دلگیر شد, he was offended; دلم رفت, I was smitten; دلش میخواهد, he wants. Translate by sense, never literally.

Idiom: āb az āb

آب از آب تکان نخوردن literally means water did not move from water; idiomatically it means nothing stirred or nothing happened at all.

Reading comprehension strategy

Each answer must be traceable to a stated line of the passage. Options that are generally true but not stated in the text are distractors, not answers.

Translating the ezāfe chain

Render the chain from the end backwards: کتابِ دوستِ من is the book of my friend, that is, my friend's book. The last noun is the possessor.

Translating rā

The object marker rā has no English or Marathi equivalent. It disappears in translation, and the object takes ordinary word order before or after the verb as the target language requires.

Formal letter opening

Formal Persian letters open with a salutation such as بسمالله or سلام و احترام, address the reader as شما, and close with با تشکر or ارادتمند.

Sa'di and the Gulistan

Sa'di (c. 1210–1291) wrote the Gulistan, a mixture of prose and verse, and the Bustan, entirely in verse. His style is known for short, balanced, moral sentences.

Ferdowsi and Shahnameh

Ferdowsi composed the Shahnameh, the Persian national epic, completed around 1010 CE and running to roughly fifty thousand couplets on pre-Islamic Iranian kings and heroes.

Hafez and the ghazal

Hafez, a fourteenth-century poet of Shiraz, wrote a divān consisting mainly of ghazals. His verse is celebrated for ambiguity between earthly love and mystical meaning.

Rumi and the Masnavi

Rumi (1207–1273) wrote the Masnavi-ye Ma'navi in rhymed couplets and the Divān-e Shams. He is the central figure of Persian mystical poetry and founded the Mevlevi order.