Persian Lesson 19 – Objective Pronouns, Numbers from 11 to 20

Nov 18, 2018 - Persian Language Courses

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Salam! Khosh amadid!

Are you still with me or not? How was the previous lesson? Please be in touch and let me know about your progress. And please be patient with me if many of you don’t receive direct replies to their messages!

Next week I’ll talk some about some words, which could have different spellings or pronunciations. Like /kha:ndæn/, /sobh/ and some others that use different kinds of /h/ sound. Thanks to those who have raised such questions.

Ok. Now let’s see what we have got to do this week.

Last week, we learned how to make a sentence negative in simple past tense. Today, we are going to work with it a bit more to make sure that everything is clearly understood.

Can you say this sentence in Persian?

My father built that bridge last year. I believe you can do it.

Now, make it negative.

My father didn’t build that bridge last year.

You already know what ‘to build’ means in Persian. It means /sa:khtæn/. Remove /nu:n/ from the end of the infinitive and put it with /næ/ sound in the beginning of the same word, which is now in simple past tense. That’s it! The verb is now negative.

Now try the sentence again. You will say /pedæræm a:n pol ra: pa:rsa:l næsa:kht/. Really easy, isn’t it?

Now try this sentence.

I didn’t see him yesterday.

Before doing this, let me tell you something. We already know the subjective pronouns in Persian. Do you remember it?

Actually, we learned more than subjective pronouns by learning those pronouns, but you didn’t know it!

Look at this sentence:
I saw him.

As you know, “I” is our subject here. ‘saw’ is the verb. And ‘him’ is the object of the sentence. Correct? Good! And as you know, ‘him’ is the object that refers to a person. So, this object is an objective pronoun. Let’s take a look at all the objective pronouns in English.

Me = he saw me.
You = I saw you.
Him = I saw him.
Her = I saw her.
It = I saw it.
Us = he saw us.
You = he saw you.
Them = he saw them.

No objections? Great!

Now let’s go back to Persian.

Fortunately or unfortunately, we don’t have this much pronouns in Persian! In Persian, all subjective pronouns can be objective pronouns without any change. Look at the examples below.

He saw the book. /u: keta:b ra: did/. In Persian sentence, /u:/ is the subject of the sentence. /keta:b/ is the object. /ra:/ is a word that comes after an object and tells us that /keta:b/ is the object. And finally /did/ is the verb.

Now look at this sentence:

I saw him. /mæn u: ra: didæm/. /mæn/ = subject. /u:/ = object.

As you see, /u:/ is not changed. We know /u:/ as the object of our sentence here because it is sitting in the place of an object and is followed by /ra:/. Is it clear?

In one word, all subjective pronouns can be objective pronouns without any change in their form, if they are followed by /ra:/.

Ok. I talked too much!! Now let’s go back to our sentence again, which is: I didn’t see him yesterday. We will say: /mæn u: ra: diru:z nædidæm/.