Let’s Learn Persian زبان شیرین پارسی

I wanted to ask if i say

تو خوبي

Is it like I’m asking a guy or a girl , or can i use it for both?

Thankyou ☺️

Hello!

Hi! Thank you. Im glad you found this blog useful.

Well farsi and arabic are two different languages and belong to two separate language family. Arabic is in the Afro-Asiatic family and Farsi is in the Indo-European family. But we do share our alphabet (with a few different letters) and some common vocab, but our language structure and grammar is totally different. So a farsi speaker and an arab speaker won’t be able to understand each other. You could say the relationship bw farsi and arabic is like the relationship bw english and spanish or french. Almost similar alphabet and a lot of loan words, but two entirely different languages.

کو به نقشی دیگر آید سوی تو می‌دان یقین

- مولانا، شاعر ایرانی قرن ۱۳

Don’t grieve. Anything you lose comes around in another form.

- Rumi, 13th Persian poet

“Har khoshi ke fot shod az to mabaash andouhgeen

the second line of this nizami ghavani's poem i found on google images; i have been trying to transliterate it in farsi but i really, really am so unsure. i haven't been able to figure out! (i kinda don't know if this pic is legit or not though, hehe)

is it tuu leyli shookih man majnuu nam id wast, or am i still incorrect phonetically? what would you think is the best romanization of the second sentence?

also, thank you so much for taking your time reading my question ♡♡♡

Hey there, Syarifa! Thank you for the kind words, i’m so glad you’ve found this blog useful!

You’re right, we might share a lot of letters with the Arabic language but the way we pronounce them is slightly different. For example, we don’t differentiate between “ز-ض-ظ-ذ” and pronounce them all the same as the ‘z’ in English.

The line in the picture is from a poem by Nezami Ganjavi. And it goes like this: “Hadis e aasheghi bar man rahaa kon/ to leili sho ke man majnoonam ei doost”

Khar خر means donkey in Persian and it’s used in some interesting slangs to mean ‘too much of something’. Here are some examples:

Kharpoul خرپول is made up of ‘khar’ خر meaning ‘donkey’ and ‘poul’ پول meaning ‘money’. It means ‘filthy rich’.

Kharshaans خرشانس is khar خر + shaans شانس (luck) and it means ‘lucky as hell’.

Kharkhoun خرخون is khar خر + khoun خون (reader) which means ‘bookworm, nerd’. Someone who spends all their time studying to get the perfect marks.

Kharkeif خرکیف is khar + keif کیف (joy) and means ‘overjoyed, over the moon’.

All of these terms are slang and may come across as slightly offensive/derogatory. If you call someone ‘kharkhoun’ you’re definitely not complimenting their studious nature.

But you can use kharkeif to refer to yourself if you’re overjoyed about something.

Just mind that these words shouldn’t be used in formal and polite settings or people would think you’re being rude and disrespectful.

You can use them freely with friends and family however.

Hey there! Oh you’d be surprised how many rules Iranians (or people in general, lol) are willing to break on a daily basis just to be able to live like a normal person.

Despite the law against the selling and buying of any alcoholic drinks, people have access to them if they know the right person. Since the drinks are really expensive, you can rest assured that almost all middle and upper class families have access to drinks and almost all extravagant parties serve alcoholic beverages of one kind or another.

Some people make their own wine. But other types of drinks are all contraband so extra care must be taken to make sure the drinks come from a safe source.

What strict laws actually get listened to? Well, some people will always abide by the laws because the punishment, if caught, is severe. But others will always try to find a way around it. Like the law on hijab or against homosexuality or abortion. (Or even accessing blocked websites; fun fact, tumblr is actually blocked in iran).

“You among flowers are like a flower among thorns.”

Saadi, 13th century Persian poet

Today’s the Persian New Year, 1400. We call the New Year holidays ‘Norouz’ نوروز, which literally means ‘new day’, and lasts for 13 days.

Something interesting about this year is that 1399 was a leap year, so today March 20 before 13:07:28, it’s still 1399 but right after that it’s 1400. Although on the calendar the year officially begins on March 21.

I wish everyone who’s celebrating the New Year today a wonderful year ahead! 🌸🎉🌸

* The first picture I took yesterday of people doing some last-minute shopping before Norouz or just enjoying the fresh air (rare as it is) in Tehran.

In Persian, if you call someone a chatrbaaz چترباز (parachutist), figurively you’re calling them a freeloader.

If you say someone has opened their parachute (chatr baaz karde چتر باز کرده), figuratively you mean they are freeloading.

In a more informal and also more common way, people would just say chatr shodan چتر شدن (to become a parachute) to mean that they’re gonna freeload. And would simply call freeloaders ‘chatr’ چتر (meaning a parachute).

Example:

A: mishe emruz ham baa maashin to berim? (Can we go with your car today, again?)

The interesting part in this story is the scene that seems to have inspired the German fairytale Rapunzel.

Roudabeh is the princess of a nearby land and Zaal is the prince of another land. Their relationship is in secret because Zaal’s father doesn’t approve of it (because Roudabeh’s father is a descendant of Zahhak ضحاک, an evil king that ruled over Persia for a thousand years and killed young men to feed the two snakes on his shoulders— I will tell you about this in another post)

But Zaal, deeply in love as he is, doesn’t care about such politics and keeps sending Roudabeh love letters and one day he actually goes to her palace to see her.

Roudabeh comes to the window and throws her long black hair down, telling Zaal to grab the hair and climb inside.

But unlike the prince in Rapunzel, Zaal refuses to grab his beloved’s hair, saying he would never do something that would hurt her. Instead he uses his rope to climb the wall and get into the princess’ bedroom.

Hello, lovely Brazilian person!

I’m so glad you found this little blog and thank you for your kind words!

It always amazes me how much people from different and at times far away countries show an interest in learning Persian despite the lack of any influential, cultural product out there to pique their interest.

Here’s a meme with Persian alphabet for you:))

تو سر پیازی یا ته پیاز؟.

(To sar e piaazi yaa tah e piaaz?)

This is a very interesting and widely used expression in Persian.

Basically, the top and the end of an onion have some use whereas the middle, which is the stem, is not edible and is thrown away.

When you ask someone if they’re the top or the end of the onion, you’re asking them: is this issue, in anyway, relevant to you? Is this any of your business? If not, then stay out of it!

The situation in which you may use this expression is when some nosy guy is trying to get involved in something that has nothing to do with them. This expression is used to show your displeasure at the guy’s attempt to poke their nose into your business.

There’s another way to use this expression.

I’m neither the top nor the head of the onion.

من نه سر پیازم نه ته پیاز..

(Man na sar e piaaz am na tah e piaaz.)