Speak / Lesson 67
House / Home (Vocabulary Sprint)
In this Persian / Farsi lesson, we go over vocabulary needed to talk about the home. In Persian, house is called 'khooné' (in written Persian, it's khāné). Different rooms in the house include:
- room - otāgh
- bedroom - otāgh khāb
- bathroom - dast shoowee or toowālet
- dining room - āshpaz khooné
- living room - sālon
We also go over vocabulary for common parts of a house, like doors, windows, ceilings and floors, and furniture and popular items inside each of these rooms of the house.

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Download lesson MP3GREETINGS:
hello
سَلام
how are you?
چِطوری؟
Note: In Persian, as in many other languages, there is a formal and an informal way of speaking. We will be covering this in more detail in later lessons. For now, however, chetor-ee is the informal way of asking someone how they are, so it should only be used with people that you are familiar with. hālé shomā chetor-é is the formal expression for ‘how are you.’
Spelling note: In written Persian, words are not capitalized. For this reason, we do not capitalize Persian words written in phonetic English in the guides.
ANSWERS:
I’m well
خوبَم
Pronunciation tip: kh is one of two unique sounds in the Persian language that is not used in the English language. It should be repeated daily until mastered, as it is essential to successfully speak Persian. Listen to the podcast for more information on how to make the sound.
Persian | English |
---|---|
salām | hello |
chetor-ee | how are you? |
khoobam | I’m well |
merci | thank you |
khayli | very |
khayli khoobam | I’m very well |
khoob neestam | I’m not well |
man | me/I |
bad neestam | I’m not bad |
ālee | great |
chetor-een? | how are you? (formal) |
hālé shomā chetor-é? | how are you? (formal) |
hālet chetor-é? | how are you? (informal) |
khoob-ee? | are you well? (informal) |
mamnoonam | thank you |
chetor peesh meeré? | how’s it going? |
ché khabar? | what’s the news? (what’s up?) |
testeeeee |
Leyla: Hello and welcome to lesson 84 of time conversation. I'm Leyla. I'm your host and I'm joined by my husband Chris. Salam Chris.
Chris: Salaam. This is Chris I'm Leyla husband. I'm learning Persian along with you guys.
Leyla: And as you know we are in our vocabulary sprint unit of Chai and Conversation, which means we are following one topic and learning all the vocabulary words related to that topic. And our topic today is of houses.
Chris: Now that's something that's very dear to our hearts, because we are both architects. And you know, we also know a little bit about it.
Leyla: That's right and the word for architects is memar.
Chris: memar
Leyla: And the word for a house in Persian is khooneh
Chris: khooneh
Leyla: That's one of these words that's very different written versus spoken, written. It's khaneh. Whenever you say house you see, khooneh. And I thought we'd go over different rooms in the house and different objects that you might be able to find in those rooms. So actually, we have a friend Johnny who's learning Spanish right now with his wife. And one thing he's doing is making little notes on sticky notes and putting it around the house on those different objects. That might be a great way for you to learn these words as well.
Chris: So if you end up doing this, please take a picture and tag us on your social media.
Leyla: That's a good idea. So the word for room in in person first is a talk or talk so that okay sound of course, this is one of those ones that you have to just keep practicing word for room or talk or talk some different different things that you find in most rooms. One is the word for door. And that in Persian is dar.
Chris: Dar.
Leyla: That's an easy one. Exactly. It has the same roots as door door, dar.
Chris: Dad.
Leyla: Another thing that you find in most rooms is the word for window has nothing to do with English word. It's panjereh
Chris: panjereh
Leyla: That's right. So, dar
Chris: dar
Leyla: panjereh
Chris: panjereh.
Leyla: Two openings within and or top or top. What is the word for a room? That's right. So other things that you find in rooms, you find walls, a wall is a deevar.
deevar.
Leyla: And the word for ceiling is saghf
Chris: saghf
Leyla: Saghf? That's right. And the word for a ground or floor of a room is zameen.
zameen.
Chris: So I mean, perfect. So that's ceiling one that that has some several consonants in a row they dead.
Leyla: It's one of those words The past and in the ER right together no vowel between them sex SAF, which we don't have very many in English, but we do have a lot in Persian. Okay, so now let's go over different autologous that we have in the house. One of the most common talks rooms is the salon.
Chris: salon.
Leyla: And this might sound like a familiar word. It's a French borrowed word. Do you know what that is?
Chris: Yeah, it's the living room.
Leyla: That's right. So salon. And a few common things that you find in the salon. The word for table is meez
Chris: meez. So that sounds like it has roots with with other languages. A Mesa?
Leyla: That's right. Mesa table in Spanish meez table in Persian. Another common thing that you find in a living room is a mobl
Chris: mobl.
Leyla: And that is the word for a couch. All right,
Chris: mobl.
Leyla: Another common thing in a living room is lamp.
Chris: lamp. Okay, let me guess. That is I think that's probably a lamp.
Leyla: That's right number. You have that often in living rooms. And the most important part of any room not just a living room is farsh
Chris: There it is farsh
Leyla: and that is, well,
Chris: if you know Persian culture, you know that the most important part of any room is going to be the rug.
Leyla: That's right rug in Persian
Chris: farsh. Now, you'll probably see farsh come up on every single other room that we cover here too. Persians are renowned for their rugs, because they make lovely rugs.
Leyla: That's right. And they're all very unique to different regions of Iran at different colors, different ways of creating them. But yes, we do take our rugs very seriously very seriously.
Chris: This isn't. This is a big topic and in our household and probably every other Persian household. We have one rug that our sons have in their room and it's covered with little figures. So I know a lot of you are, you know, when you think of a Persian rug, there's probably an image in your mind of a very ornate symmetrical rug, maybe a deep red that has, you know, different kinds of symbols on stuff but they there's a really a wide variety of Persian rugs.
Leyla: Yeah, that one is called the good team. Okay. So moving on to bedroom as you've mentioned, a bedroom is called an otagh khab.
Chris: Otagh khab.
Leyla: Otagh khab. And khab is the word for sleep. Otagh khab is a bedroom or sleeping room
Chris: otagh khab
Leyla: that's right. And the most common thing that you find in a sleeping room of course is your bed and that is takht,
Chris: takht.
Leyla: And another common thing that you might find in a bedroom is your closet and that is a komod,
Chris: komod.
Leyla: So again, I won't bring it in there but probably another moment. Important thing is a farsh. We'll just take that for granted. Right?
Chris: You're gonna have a rug in your bedroom.
Leyla: Exactly. Another common room that we all have in our houses is a toilet. Toowalet
Chris: toowalet
Leyla: So just as in you know in English there's several different words for the bathroom, bathroom restroom, toilet, in person, same thing, it's often defined by what's in it, toilet, toilet, the toilet or you can use it to refer to the room or dastshoowee
Chris: dast Shui so so we know that dast is your hand. Shoowee must be a sink.
Leyla: It's washing. Yeah, hand washing.
Chris: So a sink
Leyla: Exactly. So you could call the entire that entire room dastshoowee, and that is the polite way to retreat and refer to it. So another thing that you can find in a dastshoowee is your shower. And that is hamoom,
Chris: hamoom
Leyla: Hamoom. right to miss sounds. And your tub is a van
van.
Chris: So if I was at a Persian friend's house and I want to ask where the bathroom is, I could say, dastshoowee koo. Or maybe or I could say toowalet koo.
Leyla: Yes, you can say either. Yes.
Chris: Yeah. Now one last thing. are we throwing the farsh in here?
Leyla: No farshes in the toowalet. Moving on the dining room is also another common room in the house. That would be otagheh nahar khoree
Chris: otagheh nahar khoree
Leyla: Otaghe
Chris: otagheh.
Leyla: nahar khoree.
Chris: nahar khoree
Leyla: nahar is the word for
Chris: lunch.
Leyla: Yes, so nnahar khoree eating lunch the room to eat lunch in so your dining room and along that same thread, you have a dining table and that is meezeh nahar khoree,
meezeh nahar khoree, the table for eating lunch. And another thing that you have around your meezeh nahar khoree is sandalee.
Chris: sandalee
Leyla: And that is the word for chair.
Chris: Oh, that's a great one. sandalee
Leyla: sandalee. Okay, so those are most of the common rooms in the house. Another common part of the house is a poshteboon
Chris: poshteboon
Leyla: and that is the word for a rooftop. And in Iran, you have basically flat roofs. Everyone really makes use of those rooftops putting, you know tables and chairs out there or even sleeping there in the summer so that that would be an important word to learn. Poshteboon
Chris: poshteboon
Leyla: Another important room in the house. I can't believe we're leaving this one for last but is ashpazkhooneh. And what is an ashpaz?
Chris: We just learned this ashpaz is soup cooker and if we're saying ashpaz khooneh that sounds like it is a soup cookers house.
Leyla: That's right. So the kitchen. Ashpaz khooneh
Chris: Ashpaz khooneh
Leyla: The house for the soup cooker, kitchen, and some important things that you have in ashpazkhooneh. One is a yackchal.
Leyla: Yackchal. in this word actually has an interesting history. Yeah is the word for ice yakh, and chal is the word for a dugout. So in the past before there was the modern version of this, people would dig holes in the ground put ice in it and it would serve as a
Chris: swimming pool right now it's a refrigerator.
Leyla: That's right refrigerator. So yack chal
Chris: Yakh chal
Leyla: and then there's also a zarfshoowee
Chris: zarfshoowee
Leyla: we learned in our food lesson and that means a dish so what zarf shoowee
Chris: zarf shoowee. So we have a dast showee in the bathroom for washing our hands. So zarf showee is a, it's probably gonna be a sink for you to wash dishes.
Leyla: That's right. So your kitchen sink is called zarf shoowee, should we make that distinction. Dast showee in the bathroom, zarf showee in the kitchen, and you brought up another important part of a lot of houses, and that is a estakhr,
estakhr. And that is a pool. Your father just added a pool.
Chris: He did. And we're looking maybe of doing like a little above ground one in our backyard. I don't know. It gets down here in Texas.
Leyla: It does get very hot. So another important word for a house is your garage
Chris: garage,
Leyla: which is a
Chris: it's a garage.
Leyla: And a basement is zeer zameen.
Chris: zeer zameen
Leyla: Yeah, a lot of houses in Iran have that and zeer is under and zameen is ground. So those are vocabulary related to a khooneh. Hope you enjoyed it. There's plenty more on our website. Check out our bonus materials at chaiandconversation.com with Chai spelled CHAI. And there you have any questions, comments we'd love to hear. And we'll see you next time on Chai and Conversation. Khodahafez from Leyla
Chris: And khodahafez from Chris