Salam! Khosh amadid!
Hopefully you are enjoying the lessons. Please let me know if you have any questions that you think I can answer! Don’t get impatient if you receive no direct reply although I am trying to write back to many of you as much as I can. Anyway, you may find the answers to your questions regarding the lessons here on this site even if there is no direct reply to your messages through e-mail.
Before we start today, let me answer to some of your questions.
1- In Useful drills 19, why 
/hæfteh ye pish/ and not 
/hæfteh ye gozæshteh/ for ‘last week’?
Both /hæfteh ye pish/ and /hæfteh ye gozæshteh/ are the same. You may use both of them, which are absolutely correct.
You may also say 
/seh ru:z-e- pish/ or 
/seh ru:z-e- gozæshteh/ for ‘three days ago’. Certainly our Persian grammar has no objections! Me too!
2- We have 
/ru:z/ for ‘day’ and 
/diru:z/ for ‘yesterday’. We also have 
/shæb/ for ‘night’ and 
/dishæb/ for ‘last night’. Can we say 
/di hæfteh/ for ‘last week’?
Well, you can but you have to create a new grammar for Persian language, which is too soon for you at this stage!! (just a joke!)
you seem absolutely right. Nevertheless, we don’t have such a rule in Persian. although the structure you have offered seems acceptable, it sounds non sense in this language and people can not understand you.
3- the Persian translation of ‘this young lady didn’t touch your son yesterday’, is this: 
/in kha:nom-e- jæva:n diru:z beh pesæreta:n dæst næzæd/. Why 
/pesæreta:n/ and not 
/pesæreta:n ra:/?
I think I have already explained on the same page. Some English verbs when used in Persian need some extra elements such as prepositions and so on. Let’s have a look at the sentence once more:
This young lady didn’t touch your son yesterday. When converting the same sentence into Persian, we have to say ‘ this young lady didn’t touch to your son yesterday’. But in English ‘to’ is redundant.
Look at this sentence which is much closer to what I am trying to say:
‘I said to you yesterday. As you see, we cannot say ‘I said you’ in English. This verb needs ‘to’, which cannot be deleted. We’ll have to change the verb if we want to delete ‘to’ from our sentence. In this case, we should say: ‘I told you yesterday’.
Some Persian verbs have the same story. We can not put 
/ra:/ after some words although we know that this word is sitting in the place of an object. It rather depends on the nature of verbs not the objects. But currently, you don’t need to worry about these verbs. Even I, as a Persian who is teaching you, don’t know all the verbs which should fall in this category, before using them. To me it’s not necessary to overload your brain with memorizing a group of words, rules, verbs, etc…. Instead, you’d better try to use words in your sentences and then correct the structure of your sentence actively by deleting or adding some elements to your sentence, which seems more sensible; and avoid memorizing a group of words and rules and different things that you haven’t used it by yourself in your sentences. What I am trying to say is that the context should be your first priority in choosing and applying words. I remember when I was a high school student in my town. We had an English teacher who was really active, but I think he was, to some extent, wrong in properly teaching the rules. He was a really hard-working one. He had tried really hard to tell us different rules and let us write them down one by one. You don’t believe me if I tell you that I had memorized more than two long pages about when and how to use ‘The’ in English! I had memorized more than 100 pages rules and regulations altogether! And I was quite sure that I would get a high mark in the exam. Do you know what happened to me? I failed in the exam!! Don’t laugh at me! I did really fail in the English exam! I was never able to use all those rules in real texts! Today, I don’t even remember one of those hundreds rules I had filled my brain with. What I do now is I use a word in a sentence and then take a look at it to see how I can change it properly and how I can find a rule for that. Now, the context is my biggest teacher.
Please note that I don’t want to neglect the efforts of my teachers to whom I owe a lot. I just want to tell you that you can find the rules from within the contexts not from your memorized knowledge.
4- how can we use ‘A’ in our Persian translations? For example: I was a student.
As you know, ‘A’ has different meanings and functions in different sentences. Sometimes it means ‘one’ and sometimes it refers to something that is not known or clear to us and so on. In English, we use ‘A’ or ‘An’ before a singular noun which is countable, such as ‘a student’, ‘a book’, ‘an apple’, and so on. We are not allowed to say ‘I was student’; instead we should say ‘I was a student’. This is the nature of this language. But it does not mean that ‘I was one student and not two students’! correct? Well, basically, this ‘A’ should not be translated as 
/yek/ in Persian, since every body knows that you can be only one student and not two! As a result, you may only say 
/mæn da:nesh a:mu:z bu:dæm/ and don’t say 
/mæn yek da:nesh a:mu:z bu:dæm/.
Nevertheless, ‘A’ in the following sentence has two equivalents in Persian both of which are accepted.
I bought a book. 
/mæn yek keta:b khæridæm/ or 
/mæn keta:bi khæridæm/. The first one is mostly used in daily conversation while the second one is more literary oriented and mostly used in writings. You are allowed to use either of them in your sentences. It has some other functions which I believe will put you in confusion if explained at this stage. So, currently feel free to use either /mæn yek keta:b khæridæm/ or /mæn keta:bi khæridæm/.
To tell the truth, this question goes deeper than this, but we don’t need it now. Let’s do first things first and let’s do things step by step. Ok?
Now let’s see what we have for today.
Today, we’ll learn some more numbers and then we’ll go to Useful drills page to test our ability in using our knowledge.
We already know the numbers from one to twenty. As I told you before, this was the most difficult part of our work in learning numbers. Before we continue, let’s try the following numbers first.
20 = 
/bist/.
30 = 
/si:/.
40 = 
/che hel/.
50 = 
/pænja:h/.
60 = 
/shæst/.
70 = 
/hæfta:d/.
80 = 
/hæshta:d/.
90 = 
/nævæd/.
100 = 
/sæd/.
No problems? Great!
Now we want to say the following numbers:
- 21
- 22
- 23
and so on.
The easiest way and explanation in learning the numbers is this:
The main number (20, 30, 40, 50, …) + /o/ sound + one of the first ten numbers. Don’t let this rule scare you! Let’s try and see!
21 = 
/bist-o- yek/.
22 = 
/bist-o- do/.
23 = 
/bist-o- seh/.
24 = 
/bist-o- chæha:r/.
You continue!
30 = /si:/.
31 = 
/si: -o- yek/.
32 = 
/si: -o- do/.
33 = 
/si:-o- seh/.
You continue!
40 = /che hel/.
41 = 
/che hel-o- yek/.
42 = 
/che hel-o- d-/.
Continue!
50 = /pænja:h/.
51 = 
/pænja:h-o- yek/.
52 = 
/pænja:h-o-do/.
Continue!
60 = /shæst/.
61 = 
/shæst-o- yek/.
62 = 
/shæst-o- do/.
Continue!
70 = /hæfta:d/.
71 = 
/hæfta:d-o- yek/.
72 = 
/hæfta:d-o- do/.
Continue!
80 = /hæshta:d/.
81 = 
/hæshta:d-o- yek/.
82 = 
/hæshta:d-o- do/.
Continue!
90 = /nævæd/.
91 = 
/nævæd-o- yek/.
92 = 
/nævæd-o- do/.
Continue!
100 = /sæd/.
101 = 
/sæd-o- yek/.
102 = 
/sæd-o- do/.
Continue!
All right! With this we come to the end of lesson /bist-o- yek/.
! I hope you liked it.
Please go to Useful drills page to do your own share.
Let’s write page is waiting for you if you want to see the main stress of the new words.
See you next week!
Khoda Hafez!
Brian
December 4, 2012 @ 3:05 pm
In the explanation of when to use “ra” here, perhaps you could include some mention of direct vs. indirect objects. It seems that ra is used primarily to denote direct objects. When there is a preposition, e.g. “beh,” the object doesn’t receive the action directly, and therefore, ra is not used.
Brian
December 4, 2012 @ 4:21 pm
Ok, looks like that’s covered in a subsequent lesson.
hamid
January 31, 2013 @ 7:58 pm
as you have mentioned that both these are eaual من یک کتاب خریدم = من کتابی خری
does it mean by adding ی in end of any word give us meaning of ” A or An ” in Persian. and tell me { میزی = یک میز } are equal in meaning?
Mona-Lisa
April 21, 2013 @ 9:44 am
Here follow comments on RAA. We have to know the difference between accusative/direct object and dative/indirect object. For us who also know German it´s easy. I hope that I have understood it correctly. Only direct objects take RAA. If so, this rule is simple.
Brian
October 7, 2013 @ 3:34 pm
To follow up on the question here regarding دیروز, دیشب, etc., it appears that older Persian grammars list دی as yesterday. It doesn’t just mean last – it means the previous day. Thus, it wouldn’t be much of a stretch to come up with constructions such as دیروز and دیشب. Di doesn’t just mean last – it specifically refers to the day prior. If you go back farther in time than one day, it would be inappropriate to use it.
I hope this helps. If anyone wants to see an example, دی is listed this way in Arthur Henry Bleeck’s 1856 “A Concise Grammar of the Persian Language” on page 56. It’s available for free in Google Books.
Brian
October 7, 2013 @ 4:10 pm
Of course, upon further review, I could be misinterpreting that, because it is listed as yester(day) with the day in parentheses.
Nick Towns
January 19, 2014 @ 8:13 am
when do you put the time before the object? I have seen it some times on this site.
Navid
January 28, 2014 @ 11:15 pm
Do you mean the number? Because in Farsi you put the number before an object always.
If you are saying two books, you will say ‘do ketab’.
esa ali
October 20, 2014 @ 7:02 pm
I wana learn persian.. and these online lessons are so usefull to me learn farsi..I am so thank full to allah ..
Tanya
March 13, 2015 @ 9:27 pm
I was wondering why in the first sentance ” This young woman did not touch your son yesterday” The word son was Pesartaan and not Pesarat?
sina
June 25, 2015 @ 1:56 pm
2words “pesarat” and “pesaretan” are true, but you use word “pesarat” when you are more comfort to someone its not formal word. but “pesaretan” word its more formal to say any one that you talking for first time and not known for you.
mohammad mj
July 16, 2015 @ 10:41 am
they are the same.”pesaretaan” is used either when you’re speaking politely to one person or when you’re talking to more than one.here,for example,you may be talking to the child’s father and mother together who are two people.therefore you have to use plural verb.I hope you get what I mean.
Ricky
September 10, 2015 @ 10:30 pm
either would be correct. pesaretaan would be formal. pesarat would be informal. pesarat would be use if talking with family or friends. pasaretaan would be used with most everyone else
anonymous
September 4, 2015 @ 2:38 pm
Thank you for making this website – I am sure you have been told many times before but it is very helpful and easy to use, with everything explained so simply and concisely. I am learning Persian so that I can speak to my Iranian friends in their own language, and also because I am fascinated by languages in general! I am a native English speaker. One day I want to go to university to study a modern, non-European language such as Persian, however I’m not sure whether I will be able to do that because university fees are expensive.
I think it is important for people to learn other languages, however native English speakers would probably see no real need with so many people who speak English as a first language or second language in the world today. Actually, only 25% of the world’s population understands English, either as a first language or a second language, which means that there’s still 75% of the Earth out there that would not understand what an English person was saying if they were talking to them. This creates almost a barrier – one that can easily be crossed if people get stuck in with learning another language, and using it to communicate with people of other nationalities. And I’m not just saying it’s foreigners who need to learn English – I’m saying all people, everywhere should learn one, and use it – even English speakers who think they can go anywhere they like and have people understand them in English, which is a lie they have been led to believe.
Thank you again for providing these fast, fun and free online lessons! I am making good progress!
DURDANA
October 26, 2016 @ 6:01 am
Salam! This is the best Persian language course I have found on the internet! The explanations are humorous and generally easy to understand. I like the fact that the samples are chosen from the work of well known Farsi poets. However, at times they are too difficult to follow. Is it possible to have easier ones linked with the lessons?