UPMSP High School Persian cheat sheet

Prose passages in the UPMSP syllabus are drawn from classical didactic and anecdotal texts (e.g. Gulistan-style prose, Qabus-nama-style advice); identify the narrator, the addressee, and the moral (nasihat) before answering detail questions.

Idafa construction (noun + noun/adj without copula, e.g. 'kitab-e man') carries most possessive and descriptive meaning; misreading the ezafe reverses who owns or describes what.

Persian word order is Subject–Object–Verb; the verb usually sits last, so the final word of a clause often decides tense, person, and negation.

Negation is prefixed ma- (prohibitive) or na-/ne- (indicative); check the verb prefix before deciding whether a statement is affirmative or negative.

Distinguish 'in' (this) / 'an' (that) and 'inja' (here) / 'anja' (there); comprehension questions frequently hinge on deictic reference.

Pronouns u (he/she/it), ishan (they/formal), ma (we), shuma (you) are gender-neutral; infer gender only from context, never from the pronoun.

Look for discourse markers: pas (therefore), vali/amma (but), chun/che (because/since), agar (if) - they signal cause, contrast, and condition in inference questions.

Persian prose often drops the copula 'ast' in written style ('in kitab xub ast' vs 'in kitab xub'); absence of a verb does not mean absence of a statement.

Persian verse is quantitative ('aruz): identify the bahr (metre) from the first bayt; the same metre recurs throughout a ghazal, which helps restore missing words.

A bayt is a couplet of two misra (hemistichs); in a ghazal both lines of the opening bayt rhyme (matla), then only the second line of each following bayt rhymes (radif + qafiya).

Radif is a repeated word or phrase after the rhyme; qafiya is the rhyme consonant cluster before it. Locate radif first - it is the fastest way to spot line endings.

Common rhetorical figures: tashbih (simile), isti'ara (metaphor), majaz (trope), kinaya (allusion), tanasub (thematic congruence) - exam questions ask you to name the figure, not just translate.

In classical ghazal vocabulary, 'yar/ma'shuq' is the beloved, 'ashiq' the lover, 'raqib' the rival, 'nasih' the adviser; these are stock roles, not literal persons.

Mystical (irfani) readings: wine (may/bada), tavern (kharabat), cupbearer (saqi), and the beloved's lock of hair (zulf) conventionally symbolise divine love and the veil, not literal drinking.

Persian poetry inverts normal syntax freely for metre; do not translate word by word - reconstruct Subject–Object–Verb and resolve the ezafe chain first.

Watch for the 'concessive' and 'vocative' particles: 'gar' (if/although), 'ei' (O), 'ai' (O) - they mark conditions and addresses that change the meaning of a line.

Present stem vs past stem: 'raftan' → past stem 'raft-' (raftam, rafti, raft) and present stem 'rav-' (ravam, ravi, ravad); irregular pairs must be memorised (budan/shudan/dadan/kardan).

Past simple endings: -am, -i, -, -im, -id, -and (raftam, rafti, raft, raftim, raftid, raftand). Present uses the same endings on the present stem with prefixes mi- (indicative) or be- (subjunctive).

Future is formed with auxiliary 'xah-' + past stem: xaham raft, xahad raft - the personal ending goes on 'xah-', not on the main verb.

Subjunctive after 'ke' with verbs of wanting, ordering, possibility: 'mixaham ke beravam' (I want to go) - 'be-' is required, not 'mi-'.

Object marker 'ra' follows a definite direct object ('kitab ra xandam'); it is not a preposition and is often written as a separate word 'را'.

Plural: animate nouns take -an/-yan (mardan, pisaran); inanimate usually take -ha (kitabha); Arabic broken plurals (kutub, mardum) are treated as singular for agreement.

Comparative/superlative: -tar and -tarin (bozorg-tar, bozorg-tarin); 'az' marks the standard of comparison ('az u bozorgtar ast').

Genitive/ezafe: noun + -e + modifier; after a vowel the ezafe is written as hamza (xane-ye man), and ezafe can chain two or three deep (daneshju-ye xub-e kelas).

Persian ezafe chains translate into Hindi/Urdu as 'ka/ki/ke' constructions and into English as 'of' or possessive 's'; translate the innermost modifier first.

Persian has no grammatical gender; when translating into Hindi/Urdu, gender must be inferred from the noun's natural gender and applied to the verb and adjective.

Persian 'ra' (object marker) has no direct Hindi/Urdu equivalent; translate it by placing the object before 'ko' only when the Hindi verb requires it, otherwise leave the object unmarked.

Hindi/Urdu postpositions (ne, ko, se, men) correspond to Persian prepositions (be, az, dar, ba); word order reverses between the two languages - do not preserve Persian SOV order blindly in English.

Idioms translate as units, not words: 'dast-e man giriftan' = 'to help/support', not 'to hold my hand'; 'jan dadan' = 'to die/sacrifice oneself'.

Persian 'ke' can be a relative pronoun ('who/which'), a complementiser ('that'), or a conjunction ('because/when'); choose the Hindi/Urdu or English equivalent from clause function.

Honorifics: 'janab', 'aqa', 'hazrat' and 'sahib' carry respect and are usually kept or rendered as 'Mr./Sir/Honourable' rather than dropped.

Numerals and dates: Persian uses Eastern Arabic-Indic digits (۱۲۳) in many texts; convert to 123 before translating dates, and note the Solar Hijri calendar differs from Vikram Samvat and Gregorian.

Persian has 32 letters; four Arabic letters (ث, ص, ض, ط) are retained in spelling but pronounced like س/س/ز/ت respectively in standard Persian.

The letter و ('vav') represents both consonant /v/ and long vowel /u/; ی ('ye') represents /y/, long /i/, and (in ezafe after vowel) /e/.

Short vowels (a, e, o) are usually unwritten; the same consonant skeleton can be read several ways, so context and known vocabulary decide the reading.

Non-connecting letters after which the pen lifts: ا, د, ذ, ر, ز, ژ, و - words like 'درد' and 'روز' show the break; all other letters join to the following letter.

Hamza and alef-maqsura: Persian uses 'هٔ' for ezafe after silent he (xane → xane-ye), and 'ی' with hamza below for the ezafe after alef (dana → dana-ye).

Arabic 'ta marbuta' (ة) becomes 'he' (ه) in Persian spelling: 'madrase', 'daftar-e' - do not pronounce it as /t/ in pause.

Vocabulary layers: Arabic loanwords (elm, kitab, maktab), native Persian (danesh, xane, ab), and modern European loans (radio, telefon); recognise the layer to predict plural and meaning.

Common prefixes/suffixes: bi- (without), ba- (with), na- (not), -mand (having), -var (like), -gah (place), -ban (keeper) - these unlock unfamiliar words in comprehension passages.

Rudaki (c. 858–941) is called the 'father of Persian poetry'; he was a court poet of the Samanids in Bukhara and is famed for his qasidas and the 'mother of wine' (madar-e mey) ode.

Firdawsi (940–1020) composed the Shahnama, the Persian national epic of some 50,000 couplets, completed around 1010 and presented to Sultan Mahmud of Ghazna.

Sa'di of Shiraz (1210–1291) wrote the Bustan (verse, 1257) and the Gulistan (prose with verse, 1258); he is known for the simple, aphoristic style and travels described in his works.

Rumi (Jalal al-Din Balkhi, 1207–1273) founded the Mevlevi order, wrote the Masnavi-ye Ma'navi in six books and the Divan-e Shams-e Tabrizi; he settled in Konya.

Hafiz of Shiraz (c. 1315–1390) is the master of the ghazal; his Divan is famed for ambiguity between earthly and mystical love and for the radif-rich opening lines.

Omar Khayyam (1048–1131) was a mathematician-astronomer of Nishapur associated with the quatrains (ruba'iyyat) and the Jalali calendar reform.

Nezami Ganjavi (1141–1209) wrote the Khamsa (Panj Ganj), including 'Layli va Majnun' and 'Khusraw va Shirin' - the model for later narrative masnavis.

Jami (1414–1492) is the last great classical poet, author of 'Yusuf va Zulaykha' and the 'Baharistan'; he is often called 'Khatam al-shu'ara' (seal of the poets).

Modern period: Nima Yushij (1896–1960) is the founder of New Poetry (she'r-e now); Forugh Farrokhzad (1934–1967) and Sadeq Hedayat (1903–1951, author of 'Buf-e kur') represent 20th-century prose and verse innovation.

Formal Persian letter layout: place and date (tarikh) top right, addressee's title and name (janab-e aqa/khanoom ...) as salutation, body, closing (ba ehtiram / ba tashakkor), signature bottom left.

Application (darkhast) opening formula: 'bedin vasile az janab-e ali hazrat-e ... khahishmandam ke ...' - state the request in the first sentence, then justify it.

Paragraph structure expected in a Persian essay: moqaddame (introduction), matn/tahlil (body/analysis), natije (conclusion); each paragraph carries one idea signalled by a discourse marker.

Formal register uses 'shoma' and plural verbs for a single addressee ('shoma tashrif dashtid'), while informal letters use 'to' and singular verbs; mixing registers is penalised.

Connectives for composition: avvalan (firstly), saniyan (secondly), az in ru (therefore), dar natije (consequently), az su-ye digar (on the other hand), be har hal (in any case).

Closing courtesies: 'ba tashakkor-e faravan' (with many thanks), 'qablan az tashakkor-e shoma' (thanking you in advance), 'ba ehtiram' (respectfully) - choose one and keep it consistent.

Address block on an envelope/application: name, street (khiyaban), alley (kuche), number (pelak), city and postal code; Persian reads right-to-left, so the largest unit (city) often appears last.

Avoid colloquial contractions in formal writing: write 'mixaham' not 'mixam', 'ast' not 'e', and keep the ezafe written where ambiguity would otherwise arise.