Persian Lesson 73 - Negative in Present Continuous Tense

Salam! Khosh amadid!

Hello every one, I hope you had a great Norouz!

Today, we are going to learn the negative form of sentences in Present Continuous Tense.

As a short review, let’s try this one first:

I am writing.

We already know how to say this in Persian. Do you remember it? Wonderful!

I am writing means /mæn da:ræm minevisæm/. Am I right? Good!

Do you still remember that magic /nu:n/? I hope you do. We use the same /nu:n/ to make our sentences negative in present continuous tense. You try it first! You have only 10 seconds to make the above sentence negative!

Did it? Great job!

Now let me answer.

I am not writing = /mæn næda:ræm minevisæm/. Am I right? Yes?

Of course not!! Was your answer the same as mine? If yes, please give yourself a very big and round Zero!!

Don’t know why? Let me tell you.

We should add /nu:n/ to the main verb of our sentence. Is /da:ræm/ the main verb in present continuous tense? No!

/da:ræm/ is the auxiliary verb in this tense when we do have another verb such as ‘writing’.

Therefore, I am not writing means /mæn da:ræm neminevisæm/.

A very important note:

The above structure is 100 percent correct as far as Persian grammar is concerned. However, this structure is not very common (not incorrect) in Persian in both written and oral form. In Persian, we would better use the negative form in Simple Present Tense for the negative form in Present continuous tense. That is to say, I am not writing means /mæn neminevisæm/. Is that clear? Good!

Second note: in doing drills, you are allowed to use both forms to learn it better. However, do not forget the first note.

All right, now let’s do the quiz first and then 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 English 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).

3- Say these numbers in Persian:

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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