How to Talk About Your Likes and Dislikes

Matt: Welcome to a brand new edition of Chai and Conversation!

Leyla: We're so glad that you are joining us. man leylā hastam va mo'alemé fārsi hastam. I am Leyla, and I am a Persian language teacher.

Matt: man matt hastam va man shāgerd hastam. I am Matt, and I am a student.

Leyla: Matt, are you ready to begin learning?

Matt: Ready!

Leyla: Great! fārsi yād begeereem with Chai and Conversation.

Last week, we learned about jobs, and we learned how to say what kind of job we do. We continued to say what type of place we work in and whether or not we like our job.

Matt: Another great way to communicate with people and get to know them is to talk about your likes and dislikes, about what you like doing in your free time.

Leyla: By the end of the lesson you should be able talk about your pastimes and hobbies, and what type of places you like to hang out at. So let's begin. Last week, at the end of the lesson we learned how to say 'I like my job'. Do you remember how, Matt?

Matt: kāram-ō doost dāram.

Leyla: So the phrase for 'I like' is “doost dāram.” To say ‘do you like your job?’ you would say "kāret-ō doost dāree?"

Matt: kāret-ō doost dāree?

Leyla: This, of course is the informal version because it's using the “tō” form. But there's the formal version also. In this version, two of the words change. You say “kāretoon-ō doost dāreen?”

Matt: kāretoon-ō doost dāreen?

Leyla: So the first word that changed is “kāretoon-ō" for formal from the “kāret-ō” from informal, and this change signifies that you are addressing the formal ‘you’ and not the informal ‘you’. The conjugation of ‘have’ changes from “dāree” for informal to “dāreen” for formal. In this sentence, you are literally saying 'do you have a liking for your job?'. So let's try the formal version again: kāretoon-ō doost dāreen?

Matt: kāretoon-ō doost dāreen?

Leyla: So that's the formal version. So it would be "kāret-ō doost dāree?" for the informal and “kāretoon-ō doost dāreen?” for the formal.

So now we're going to learn some other words we are going to add to “doost dāram” to talk about the kinds of things we like.

Let's begin with nouns. First, let's start with a word that should sound familiar to you all - “shokolāt.” I'm sure you can guess that it means 'chocolate'. To say 'I like chocolate', you say “man shokolāt doost dāram.”

Matt: man shokolāt doost dāram.

Leyla: And that's the structure you would use with any simple noun. Let's try a couple other simple nouns. Let's say you really like nature. The word for nature is “tabee'at.”

Matt: tabee'at.

Leyla: So you could say ‘I like nature’, or “man tabee'at doost dāram.”

Matt: man tabee'at doost dāram.

Leyla: You could also say that you like something very much. Matt, do you remember the word for 'very'? We learned it when we learned to say 'I am very well'.

Matt: khayli.

Leyla: Exactly, khayli. So to say you like something very much, you say “khayli doost dāram.”

Matt: khayli doost dāram.

Leyla: So if you like chocolate very much, you would say “man shokolāt khayli doost dāram.”

Matt: man shokolāt khayli doost dāram.

Leyla: Or you could say “man kāram-ō khayli doost dāram.”

Matt: man kāram-ō khayli doost dāram.

Leyla: And, Matt, what does that mean?

Matt: ‘I like my work very much’.

Leyla: And now we're going to learn something I've been avoiding teaching you for a while now, the second sound in the Persian language that does not exist in the English language, “gh.” Matt, could you try to repeat that sound? “gh.”

Matt: gh.

Leyla: Like I said, this is a very difficult sound! This sound can best be described as a gulping sound, or the exaggerated gulping sound you can often hear on cartoons, gh gh gh. Matt, could you try repeating it several times like that? gh gh gh.

Matt: gh gh gh.

Leyla: Perfect! I think this sound is much harder for people to get than the “kh” sound, and since we didn't want to scare you off in the beginning, we left it for lesson 8. But I do think we'll inevitably have to use it whether we like it or not, so better start practicing now. So, let's try repeating that sound again: gh.

Matt: gh.

Leyla: And like we said with “kh,” it's best if you just repeat this as often as you can, as silly as it seems. Walk around during the day saying “gh gh gh.” Let's try that one more time: gh gh gh.

Matt: gh gh gh.

Leyla: Perfect, and if you haven't gotten it yet, it's fine. Just try to say it as well as you can. Let's try it in a word, and again, you'll probably not get it on the first try, but we're just gonna try it. Let's try the word for ‘music’, which is mooseeghee.

Matt: mooseeghee.

Leyla: That sounds great; it might be a bit difficult, and it might not roll off your tongue, but at least, you're getting your point across. So again, this word means ‘music’, and you can use this word to say 'I like music'. To say this, you say “man mooseeghee doost dāram.”

Matt: man mooseeghee doost dāram.

Leyla: Exactly, so those were our simple nouns. We've learned “man shokolāt doost dāram.”

Matt: man shokolāt doost dāram.

Leyla: man tabee'at doost dāram.

Matt: man tabee'at doost dāram.

Leyla: And man mooseeghee doost dāram.

Matt: man mooseeghee doost dāram.

Leyla: Great, so for proper nouns, it's a bit different. Let's say you want to say you like the actor Charlie Chaplin. To say this, you have to add a word in there. Listen very carefully - man chārlee chāpleen rā doost dāram.

Matt: man chārlee chāpleen rā doost dāram.

Leyla: And that was good, Matt, changing the pronunciation of “Charlie Chaplin” to the Persian pronunciation. So, as you can see, we added the word “rā” in there: “man chārlee chāpleen rā doost dāram.” There is no direct equivalent of the word “rā” in the English language, and it can be best described as a direct object marker. In this sentence, “man chārlee chāpleen rā doost dāram,” it's used to distinguish that specific noun, ‘Charlie Chaplin’, from all the others. So when you say “man shokolāt doost dāram,” you are making a general statement, that you like all chocolate, whereas when you say “man chārlee chāpleen rā doost dāram,” you are saying that you specifically like Charlie Chaplin, not all actors necessarily.

So learning exactly where to use “rā” will take some time and practice and trial and error. Hopefully, by listening to the examples in this podcast, you'll slowly start to get the hang of it. But don't worry about it too much - like we've always said, language is all about communicating. Persian-speakers will understand what you're trying to say regardless of whether or not you use “rā” correctly, or whether or not you use it in the right place.

So one more time, let's try going through these all again: “man shokolāt doost dāram.”

Matt: man shokolāt doost dāram.

Leyla: Versus “man chārlee chāpleen rā doost dāram.”

Matt: man chārlee chāpleen rā doost dāram.

Leyla: So now, just to complicate things a smidgen more, “rā” is one of those words that's different in written versus spoken Persian, so you rarely hear someone say “chārlee chāpleen rā doost dāram.” Rather, this gets shortened to “chārlee chāpleen-ō doost dāram.”

Matt: chārlee chāpleen-ō doost dāram.

Leyla: Tacking on "-ō" at the end of “chārlee chāpleen" takes care of the “rā” for you. This might sound familiar because this is exactly what we were doing earlier with “kāram-ō doost dāram.” You're actually saying “kāram-rā doost dāram.” Just like the case with Charlie Chaplin, you don't necessarily like all jobs; you're saying that you specifically like your job. So, “kāram-ō doost dāram.”

Matt: kāram-ō doost dāram.

Leyla: “va chārlee chāpleen-ō doost dāram.”

Matt: va chārlee chāpleen-ō doost dāram.

Leyla: Now let's move on and try saying what we like to do. Let's start with an easy one - ‘I like to watch movies’. To say this, you say “doost dāram feelm bebeenam.”

Matt: doost dāram feelm beebeenam.

Leyla: Almost, the last word is “bebeenam.” 

Matt: doost dāram feelm bebeenam.

Leyla: Exactly, and notice that we flipped the sentence structure around, and now we are starting with “doost dāram” rather than ending on it. This makes the sentence less awkward and is the more typically used structure when you are saying what types of things you like to do. So, doost dāram feelm bebeenam.

Matt: doost dāram feelm bebeenam.

Leyla: “feelm” is the word for ‘movies’, and “bebeenam” means ‘to watch’ in the first person. So, one last time, doost dāram feelm bebeenam.

Matt: doost dāram feelm bebeenam.

Leyla: Or, you could like reading books. You say “doost dāram ketāb bekhoonam."

Matt: doost dāram ketāb bekhoonam.

Leyla: “ketāb” is ‘book’, and bekhoonam is ‘to read’ in the first person. doost dāram ketāb bekhoonam.

Matt: doost dāram ketāb bekhoonam.

Leyla: Let's add one more. Say you like exercising: “doost dāram varzesh bokonam.”

Matt: doost dāram varzesh bokonam.

Leyla: Or let's go ahead and use a word we learned before, “shokolāt.” You can say you like to eat chocolate, or “doost dāram shokolāt bokhoram.”

Matt: doost dāram shokolāt bokhoram.

Leyla: As you can guess, bokhoram is ‘to eat’ in the first person. Okay, so we've covered a lot of things in this lesson. Let's go through all these again, and pay close attention to the structure of each sentence. kāram-ō doost dāram.

Matt: kāram-ō doost dāram.

Leyla: shokolāt doost dāram.

Matt: shokolāt doost dāram.

Leyla: chārlee chāpleen-ō doost dāram.

Matt: chārlee chāpleen-ō doost dāram.

Leyla: tabee'at doost dāram.

Matt: tabee'at doost dāram.

Leyla: mooseeghee doost dāram.

Matt: mooseeghee doost dāram.

Leyla: doost dāram feelm bebeenam.

Matt: doost dāram feelm bebeenam.

Leyla: doost dāram ketāb bekhoonam.

Matt: doost dāram ketāb bekhoonam.

Leyla: doost dāram varzesh bokonam.

Matt: doost dāram varzesh bokonam.

Leyla: And finally, doost dāram shokolāt bokhoram.

Matt: doost dāram shokolāt bokhoram.

Leyla: Now we're going to learn one very last thing to add to our list, and that is how to say 'I like to learn Persian'. To say this, you say “doost dāram fārsi yād begeeram.”

Matt: doost dāram fārsi yād begeeram.

Leyla: “fārsi,” as I'm sure you know, is the Persian word for the Persian language, and “yād begeeram” is ‘to learn’ in the first person. So, doost dāram fārsi yād begeeram.

Matt: doost dāram fārsi yād begeeram.

Leyla: There are plenty more things we can say we like, but we're going to add a list on to the bonus materials and stop this lesson here. We've given you a good starting point for talking about the things you like to do, and you can look up other Persian words and hopefully figure out, using the sentence structures taught, how to talk a bit more about your favorite pastimes.

Matt: Thank you so much for listening to the lesson. We hope you enjoyed the lesson, and we hope you will join us in Lesson 9 of Chai and Conversation.

Leyla: tā daf'eyé bad, or until next time, from Leyla!

Matt: And khodāhāfez from Matt!