Persian Lesson 83 - Superlative adjectives in Persian

Salam! Khosh amadid!

Hello everyone, welcome back!

Recently, I have received a few messages with more or less similar themes.

Probably, many of you have Persian friends and, sometimes, may want to show off your Persian knowledge to them! As far as I know, in most cases, your Persian friends may adore you for knowing this much of their language. However, in several cases, they have shown to be a little bit inexperienced.

Some of your Persian friends have told you that the way you write is not Iranian Persian!

Some have said that, for example, the word ‘heart’ is not what your teacher has told you. Your teacher has given ‘liver’ for ‘heart’! And, a few other words that they have chosen offensively to either look down on your knowledge or to show off their own vocabulary ability!

As a Persian language teacher, let me solve your problem now.

Not all English-speaking people are English language teachers. The same is true in any language. It is true that your Persian friends enjoy Persian language as their mother tongue. However, not all of them are teachers.

As you know, many words have wide variety of meanings. To give a couple of examples, I would mention ‘to get’, ‘to know’ (as I know this – or I know him), surprised, and even ‘heart, (as in the heart of darkness).

A good teacher does not and should not teach all possible meanings of one word to beginners. If he does, the students will be totally confused and will run away from him.

I never told you that the given word has only such and such meaning in Persian. Do not believe me if I tell you that such and such word has the only meaning I have given you (except in some exceptional cases). Language is an ocean and each word has the potential to move flexibly from one function or meaning to the next.

We are still in the beginning of our Persian studies. I should not give you all possible meaning of one word. You will find them later in different contexts when you are comfortably fluent. But, this does not mean that that the certain word I have taught you is wrong.

So, please take my advice and do not argue with them. Ask experts if you want to be sure. Show your handwritings to different Iranians to see if it is readable or not. Each language can be written in different fonts and style. However, beginners are always advised to start with the most common and comfortable ones that are written in normal books. Primary school students should write in a book-style method. Later when they are more comfortable with writing, they can use as many styles as possible and no one will stand against them.

Please take it easy and keep on studying. Remember that I am not going to teach you something wrong. Minor mistakes are ignorable.

Please do the quiz and go to Useful drills page.

Quiz:

1- Listen to the audio files first (preferably once). Repeat it for a couple of times. Write it down on a paper. Find their English equivalents. (Seen)

One

Two

Three

2- Find the Persian equivalent for the following words and make four sentences with each of them (one in simple past tense, one in present perfect tense using ‘for’, one in simple future tense, and one in present continuous tense).

Since 2001

To telephone

To play

To go

3- Say these numbers in Persian:

111 – 222 – 333 – 444 – 555 – 323 – 432 – 234

4- Follow the examples, combine the letters, and make words using the given letters. You’ll have to change the big letters into the small ones whenever needed.

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