BellaOnline Forums Travel and Culture Middle Eastern Culture Some Basic Persian / Farsi Phrases

(Hello) سلام

I've replaced an older article (by a previous editor) on Persian/Farsi phrases with some more phrases and included the words and phrases in Persian script, in case you want to tryout your Persian online!

Basic Words and Phrases in Persian/Farsi

لطف (Please)
let me know if you find any mistakes. (Babak, this is your chance to laugh at my Persian! )

Julie

what about some translitterations?

You have to read the article....

Excellent Job.
Dear Julie, I laughed but not sarcastically.

You just have some mistakes in Typing I think.

Good bye: bedrood is best choice but we rarely use it in conversation but more in literature. Khoda negahdaar or Khoda Haafez is more useful. Khoda means God and negahdaar/haafez means protecting/preserving/saving. Some times "be amaan e khoda" is used either and also Iranian Arabs here tell "Fi amaan Allah" (Fi-maan-al-lah) that is direct by words.

Good Night Shab-be-khare شب بخیر
Excuse me Be-bakh-shid ببخشید
You're welcome Kha-hesh Mikonam خواهش می کنم
It's nice to meet you. Az di daareton khosh-bakhtam از دیدارتون خوشختم
How Are You? ha-le-tune chetoreh حالتون چطوره؟
I'm Fine. man-kho-bam من خوبم
And you? va shoma? و شما

How Much? Che qadr? چقدر؟
How many? Chand? چند؟
Why? cher-a(h) چرا؟

Maybe you like to know some other words.

God Khoda/ Parvardegar/ Bagh خدا- پروردگار- بغ
Family Famil فامیل
Mother Maadar مادر
Father Pedar پدر
sister Khaahar خواهر
Brother Braadar برادر

Bagh used in old Persian and not familiar for Iranian nowadays.
Do you want to know what the meaning of Baghdad is? God granted I think.
But don't know God granted this city to who! lol

LOL after I wrote that I clicked on the article. When I first read it I didn't see the link LOL

Thanks, Babak. I'll go back and make corrections later in the week. My typing in Persian is HORRIBLE! I pretty much switch to the Persian keyboard and then hit the correct key for the letter in Arabic (for the majority of letters that are the same in both languages) and hope/check that I got it right. IF I notice the error, I then look at my chart of the Persian keyboard and/or just try keys until I get the right letter. It is not an efficient method of typing (of course I use the same method to type in German most of the time too, but referencing the QWERTY keyboard. - with equally bad results.) It's not like I'm a great typist in English and I'm even worse in Arabic!

Julie

You welcome Julie
I think it would be hard for you to write in either Arabic or Persian whereas every thing is so different from English. These languages are quite hard to learn I guess. What's your opinion?

I'm only a very beginner at Arabic. In Persian, all I've learned is the few letters that don't overlap with Arabic. I'm a lot more comfortable with Hebrew, which also has a different alphabet. However, I actually find that in some ways a completely different alphabet makes learning a foreign language easier. In European languages, I always try to pronounce new words with the English sounds for the letters, in Hebrew and Arabic I either know the correct sound or I don't have any memory of what the letter sounds like and have to look it up. I think that the key, for me at least, has been starting slowly and taking the time to really be able to use the alphabet. I think the hardest part is that I don't really have anyone to practice my Arabic with.

Did you find English hard to learn? It's pretty much the same thing in reverse, except that English has so many exceptions that it's hard even for us to get it right!

Julie

Yeah really hard to learn, English language is Full of exceptions and idioms, when you learn them. Then you try to understand American movies, a black guy who speak so weird and Texasi accent. It became lovelier when your people are speaking slang and use words in different meaning, traffic, awesome! lol
just ponder what language you are spreading in the world. am I too big for my britches?

Iranians have to learn English from 6th years of school study, means when reach to 12. It's mandatory for all pupils that extended to university and beyond, so every Iranian knows some English words. Our problem here is all the English teachers are Iranian that most of them even couldn't speak English! They disable to pronounce words correctly. Nowadays computer became more helpful in this way.

I rather to now your view, How much are Arabic and Hebrew similar to each other?

I'm not sure I know enough Arabic to really be able to make a good comparison, (and my Hebrew isn't that good either.)

They both have some of the same sounds that we don't have in English. And some of the grammer is similar (like the way the verb to be is and isn't used.) I think there are more cognates between Arabic and Hebrew than English and either language (or at least in simple vocabularly.) For instance, Daddy in Hebrew is אבא (ab-ba) and in Arabic it is بابا (ba-ba).

Part of the problem with English is that there are really multiple languages all called English. And if you ask my sister-in-law (she's from England), pretty much everything in the movies is mispronounced!

Julie