Persian Lesson 17 – The Structure of a Complete Sentence in S. P. Tense

Salam! Khosh amadid!

How was the previous lesson? Like it? Let me know if you faced any problems, but please specify the problems so clearly that I can understand you.

So far, we have almost learned the simple past tense. For example we know that we should follow the following rule to make a sentence in Persian: subject + object + time + verb; Like we see in the following sentence: I bought this book yesterday. Do you remember how to say it in Persian? Excellent!! We say:  /mæn in keta:b ra: diru:z khæridæm/. Is it ok? Good!

Now we want to say this sentence: I bought this book in the market yesterday.

You see, we are expanding the sentence. Here, the order of the words in English is as follows: subject + verb + object + place + time. No objection? Good! Now, let’s try to convert this rule into Persian.

Before doing this, look at the previous Persian rule we already know. That is: subject + object + time + verb, as we see in the sentence above (I bought this book yesterday). Now we want to add ‘place’ to this rule. All we should do is putting ‘place’ between ‘time’ and ‘verb’. We will have this rule: subject + object + time + place + verb.

Easy?

Now, let’s translate this sentence: I bought this book in the market yesterday.

Market =  /ba:za:r/.

In =  /dær/.

In the market =  /dær ba:za:r/.

In/at + place =  + place.

We will say:  /mæn in keta:b ra: diru:z dær ba:za:r khæridæm/.

You see, it’s really easy!

Note: as you have probably noticed, we have two  in Persian. One is what we already know, and that means ‘door’. Remember? Ok! The other one is what you see here today, which means ‘in’. These two are written and pronounced the same way, but have different meanings. I don’t think you will be confused, as the context will help us a lot to differentiate them.

All right. This is our final and the most difficult rule we should learn. This rule is applicable to all tenses in Persian. Wow! At last I did it!! Well, we did it!

Try to memorize this rule now: subject + object + time + place + verb.

From now on (as long as we are in simple past tense), all I have to do is speak in English and all you have to do is speak in Persian! Accepted? Wonderful!

All right, with this we come to the end of lesson 17. I hope you enjoyed it.

See you next week!

Khoda Hafez!