As you know, practice makes perfect! These useful drills present even more new words for you to add to this week’s lesson. This will not only build your Persian vocabulary, but also help you learn to read and write Farsi more quickly and confidently.
Note: Before doing these homeworks, make sure you have learned the previous words fluently.
New words:
Supermarket = 
/su:perma:rket/.
Some = 
/meghda:ri/.
Some water. 
/meghda:ri a:b/.
Meat = 
/gu:sht/.
Ice-cream = 
/bæstæni/.
Milk = 
/shi:r/.
To like = 
/du:st da:shtæn/. I liked milk. 
/mæn shi:r du:st da:shtæm/.
Ball = 
/tu:p/.
To look at = 
/beh… nega:h kærdæn/. She looked at me. 
/u: beh mæn nega:h kærd/.
Balloon = 
/ba:d konæk/.
Child = 
/bæch.cheh/.
Children = 
/bæch.cheh ha:/. Apply the same rule when it comes with numbers.
Bicycle = 
/do chærkheh/.
To break = (here): 
/tærekidæn/.
The balloon broke. 
/ba:d konæk tærekid/.
Note: The word ‘here’ in this lesson as well as in the lessons to come, means ‘the meaning of this particular word / phrase in this given context’.
Hand = 
/dæst/.
Their hands. 
/dæst ha: yesha:n/. Our hands = 
/dæst ha: yema:n/.
Needle = 
/su:zæn/.
Fat = 
/cha:gh/.
Fat boy = 
/pesær-e- cha:gh/.
To scream = 
/jigh Zædæn/.
To laugh = 
/khændidæn/.
To take = (here): 
/bær da:shtæn/.
To jump on = 
/pæridæn … ru: ye /. He jumped on his bicycle. 
/u: pærid ru: ye do chærkheh æsh/.
Note:Here in this example, /U: pærid ru: ye do chærkheh æsh/ = /U: ru: ye do chærkheh æsh pærid/. Please note that the first one is ‘more oral’ than the second one. But you don’t have to worry about these tiny differences at this stage. All you need to do is to follow the examples.
Any more = 
/digær/.
I didn’t see them any more. 
/mæn a:nha: ra: digær nædidæm/.
Please translate the following paragraph into Persian.
You already know how to use the rule. You may find the answers below.
I went to the supermarket yesterday. I saw my friend in the supermarket. She was alone. She had two baskets. She bought some meat. I didn’t buy meat. I bought four ice-creams. She didn’t buy ice-cream. She bought some milk. I didn’t like milk. I bought two balls. She didn’t look at the balls. She bought two balloons. I saw four children. They had four bicycles. We didn’t have four bicycles. We had two bicycles. The children looked at the balloons. My friend didn’t look at them. They touched the balloons. The balloons broke. I looked at their hands. They had two needles. The fat boy didn’t have two needles. He had one needle. My friend screamed. The children didn’t scream. They laughed. My friend didn’t laugh. They took their bicycles. We didn’t take our bicycles. They jumped on their bicycles. They looked at us. We didn’t see them any more!
Syed Hussain Raza
May 12, 2012 @ 10:09 am
Kindly make the use of “Ra” Clear.
Syed Hussain Raza
May 13, 2012 @ 7:43 am
The use of the word “Ra” may please be made clear.
maria
May 13, 2012 @ 8:52 pm
we learnt that at lesson 13!
“we have /ra:/ after /dær/, which is the object of our sentence. As a rule, whenever a word is followed by /ra:/ is an object. It’s that simple: word + /ra:/ makes object.”
it has no meaning in english I guess.. It is a small word like “from” or “the” if I can imagine, which means that the previous word is the object of the following verb!
Hassan H
May 14, 2012 @ 10:22 am
Thanks Maria for your help.
You are right on ‘ra’,
but I will talk about ‘ra’ in more detail as soon as possible (many students are complaining about this).
Best,
Hassan
Jan
June 16, 2012 @ 8:19 pm
Dear Hassan,
Could you please explain why you wrote “hands” and suffixes separately in this drill? (our hands, their hands)
Siraj
February 22, 2016 @ 10:58 am
That was exactly my question too… Shouldn’t ‘ha’ join ‘Te’ of Dasht?
Lucija
May 14, 2016 @ 3:06 pm
I was also wondering why some words in plural are written together with suffixes while others are not. For example: “our books” was written together, but “our bicycles” was not.
Could someone explain?
Umer Toor
August 6, 2012 @ 6:21 pm
Can you talk about use of “ash” in the bicycle sentence? I’ve not seen this kind of ending in past tense before. Is it attached with a verb pointing to an objective noun, or something else?
Hasan Mahfooz
January 19, 2013 @ 1:59 am
ash = yash
do charkhe ash means his bicycle
violinist
July 19, 2014 @ 4:35 pm
Thank you, but why alef is used?
Hasan Mahfooz
January 18, 2013 @ 1:23 am
You have missed out the word “ra” in many of the objects. May I know why?
[email protected]
February 7, 2013 @ 7:02 pm
dear sir,first of all thank u for ur this volunteer help.now kindly make the use of ra clear.y u dint put ra in the following sentence,”o miqdari gosht kharid”? and y u put “bah” ? before supermarket in line one.?hope for ur early reply.
jazaka’ALLAH.
Ziplaboum
February 18, 2013 @ 7:18 pm
Bonjour!!! (a drop of french)
You write :
او پرید روی دوچرخه اش
to translate He jumped on his bicycle.
Why دوچرخه اش and not دوچرخهش ?
خانه اش and not خانهش ?…
Orumiya
April 7, 2013 @ 4:30 pm
Hi Ziplaboum!
This particular letter can be vowel and consonant as well. In the end of the words it’s an “e” (vowel). If you write خانه اش, you read “khane-ash”, so you can see the 2 vowels. But if you write خانهش, if you read, it’s khanehash, because this letter in the beginning and in the middle of the words is “h” (consonant).
Hope it helped!
greetings!
violinist
July 19, 2014 @ 4:38 pm
Thank you!
ariane alana
July 21, 2013 @ 8:57 am
Hi Hassan! Thank you for the lessons! I am wondering if you could do an audio of these paragraphs so that we could learn the accent and intonation as well. I understand that Farsi is very melodic and the way I pronounce these sentences may be too flat! If you could, maybe you don’t have to read it too slow (not too fast too of course :), so we could practice listening and speaking better and to get the ‘flow’ going. Thank you and I love your lessons, I have to say I become a little bit obsessed:p
Irfan Ali
August 7, 2013 @ 5:56 am
Hello sir.Please make te use of RA clear. In some sentences you used RA and in some others you do not.It is confusing.
Mr.KK
October 20, 2013 @ 5:15 pm
Sir! I enjoyed this lesson.Why did you stop writing lessons after 161st lesson?Please continue.Thank you
Junayd
October 1, 2014 @ 8:28 pm
nice work indeed sir. I did the drill of lesson 20 almost correctly because of your efforts but like another friend I am also confuse with the use of “RAA” for example: there is ” I saw my friend in the supermarket” in Persian translation of it, it has “RAA” such as “Man dostum raa deedum” whereas in another sentence ” I saw four children” there is no “RAA” this time.”Man chihar bacheh deedum” why not “Man chihar bacheh raa deedum”???
Sassan Sanei
June 3, 2016 @ 3:09 pm
Junayd:
There is no definite article (like English “the”) in Persian, so the word “ra” is generally used whenever the object of the sentence is definite. Note that “ra” does not translate to “the” but introduces the object of the sentence when the object is definite.
If the object is indefinite, the “ra” can be omitted (“I eat pizza”) or replaced with a number (“I eat two pizzas”). Note that most languages, including Persian, do not distinguish between the indefinite article a/an and the number one (“I eat a pizza” translates to “I eat one pizza”).
So to answer your question, unless it is clear that you are referring to four specific children, you would omit the “ra”:
من چهار بچه را دیدم (man chehar bacheh ra deedam) = I saw the four children
من چهار بچه دیدم (man chehar bacheh deedam) = I saw four children
See how that works? In the first one, you’re referring to four specific children (perhaps they were referenced earlier in the story) but in the second one, you’re referring to four random children.
Remember, “ra” is still used with a possessive suffix:
من دوستم را دیدم (man doostam ra deedam) = I saw my friend
من یک دوست دیدم (man yek doost deedam) = I saw a friend / I saw one friend (sounds a little awkward, but grammatically correct).
However, it would not make sense to say من دوست دیدم (man doost deedam) as this would be “I saw friend” which is not very meaningful.
It would also be incorrect to say من دوستم دیدم (man doostam deedam) because Persian grammar.
Only for certain objects of indefinite quantity it would be acceptable to omit the “ra” or any quantity indicator entirely:
من چای را دیدم (man chaee ra deedam) = I saw the tea
من چای دیدم (man chaee deedam) = I saw tea
I hope this helps!
Thomas
January 30, 2015 @ 9:06 am
Hassan, once more congratulations for your website. I’m working hard every day, the vocabulary list is becoming longer and longer. I feel weak in front of all the job to be done and wish could learn faster ! Anyway, I try to keep my spirit high and force me to learn as much as you propose, every day.
Ghamgeen
July 4, 2015 @ 12:11 pm
Thanks. I do appreciate you lessons, Farsi language is somehow resemble with my language Kurdish
Eugen
December 1, 2015 @ 2:18 pm
Great website. Really love it. Thank you very much for such amazing and really giant job you have done.
I have one question. In the example “I liked milk” we have milk as object. Right? But we have translated without ra. Why?