How to Talk to People in a Formal Manner, and More on Hosting and Being Hosted

Matt: Hello, everyone, and welcome back to the 15th episode of Chai and Conversation!

Leyla: We've been on a bit of a summer hiatus, but we are back now to the biweekly schedule!

Matt: In the 13th episode, we began learning about being hosted or hosting.

Leyla: Today, we're going to continue along with the same thread with more vocabulary that deals with hosting and talk a bit more about formal speech. We'll begin with a short dialogue and build up our vocabulary from there!

Matt: As always, this podcast is only one part of Chai and Conversation. Go to our website at www.chaiandconversation.com, with “chai” spelled C-H-A-I, for bonus materials you can use to enhance your learning experience!

Leyla: These include transcripts of the program with the words and phrases we learned written phonetically in English so that you can follow along and make sure you're understanding the words and phrases correctly!

Matt: These bonus materials are provided for a very nominal fee on the website. As always, your feedback and support is much appreciated!

Leyla: Enough of that for now. Matt, are you ready to begin learning?

Matt: I'm ready!

Leyla: Great, let's continue to Learn Persian with Chai and Conversation!

In the last episode, we started talking about the concept of tārof, the form of etiquette central to Iranian culture.

Matt: In Lesson 13, we went over different drinks that you could be offered, and this week, we're going to expand on etiquette.

Leyla: First, let's begin with a dialogue. Let's say Matt has decided to visit his in-laws, and has gone over to their house on a Saturday afternoon. First, Matt, these are your in-laws, so would you speak to them in an informal or formal way?

Matt: Well, they're older than me, and I need to speak to them respectfully, so I would use formal.

Leyla: What was the formal form of ‘you’?

Matt: shomā.

Leyla: Exactly, shomā. Now, one thing that we haven't discussed before is that shomā has two different conjugations. One is more formal and can be seen in written Persian, and the other is more conversational. Let's take a word you should be very familiar with because you've learned it in the beginning lesson: chetor-een? Do you remember what this word means, Matt?

Matt: ‘How are you’, formal.

Leyla: Exactly, it's ‘how are you’ in the formal sense. As we've explained in previous lessons, words are often combined in spoken conversation. In this case, “chetor” means ‘how’, and “hasteen” is the second person plural form of the verb ‘to be’, so “chetor hasteen” means ‘how are you’, and combined in speech, it becomes “chetor-een.” However, there's a slightly more formal way of conjugated “hasteen” for formal ‘you’, and that is “hasteed," so it ends with a D rather than an N. Anytime you see this word in writing, it will be in this form. You will sometimes hear it spoken as well, so I would like us to be familiar with this form of conjugating the verb. Again, using the “hasteed” form of conjugation, “chetor” plus “hasteed” becomes “chetor-eed.”

Matt: chetor-eed?

Leyla: The same can be done for many of the other words we've learned in this program. Instead of ending the conjugations with an "-een," they will end with an “-eed.” For instance, using this form of conjugation, instead of saying “shomā az kojā hasteen,” which means ‘where are you from’, you would say '“shomā az kojā hasteed.”

Matt: shomā az kojā hasteed?

Leyla: Or “kojā zendegee meekoneen,” which means ‘where do you live’, would be…?

Matt: kojā zendegee meekoneed?

Leyla: Exactly, so “meekoneed” instead of “meekoneen.” Because the goal of Chai and Conversation is to teach you conversational Persian, we're just learning the more colloquial form of conjugating the second tensed plural verb. In Unit 3 of Chai and Conversation, or Lessons 20-30, we will be going more in depth with grammar of the Persian language, and we'll speak slightly more technically about these topics then. 

Now, let's get back to the conversation Matt would possibly have with his in-laws on this Saturday afternoon! I will be playing Matt's mother-in-law, and Matt will be playing himself in this dialogue. Listen carefully and see if you can pick out the meaning of the conversation! There might be a word or phrase you don't understand, but try to understand them through context clues, and we'll go over it afterwards. Here we go:

Leyla: salām matt. khosh āmadee!

Matt: mamnoon-am. shomā chetor-een?

Leyla: bad neestam, khaylee mamnoon. tō khoob-ee?

Matt: khoob-am merci.

Leyla: befarmā besheen.

Matt: merci.

Leyla: chāi meekhoree?

Matt: balé, chāi meekhoram.

Leyla: bā ghand yā shekar?

Matt: dō ghand lotfan.

Leyla: bāshé, befarmā, een ham dō ghand.

Matt: khaylee mamnoon.

Leyla: It starts off with the mother-in-law saying “salām matt. khosh āmadee!” “khosh āmadee” means ‘welcome!’, and it's using the informal ‘you’. khosh āmadee!

Matt: khosh āmadee!

Leyla: “khosh āmadee” is the informal version of welcome, so if you would like to say it in the formal language, you would say “khosh āmadeen!”

Matt: khosh āmadeen!

Leyla: And then Matt replies…

Matt: mamnoon-am. shomā chetor-een?

Leyla: “mamnoon-am” is a word we haven't learned before. We've learned that ‘thank you’ is “merci,” and this is taken directly from the French word for ‘thank you’ and is slightly informal. “mamnoon-am” is the equivalent of something like 'I am thankful'. mamnoon-am.

Matt: mamnoon-am.

Leyla: The in-law replies, “bad neestam, khaylee mamnoon.” We know “bad neestam." It means…?

Matt: 'I'm not bad'!

Leyla: And “khaylee mamnoon” means 'many thanks'. khaylee mamnoon.

Matt: khaylee mamnoon.

Leyla: Then the in-law says, “befarmā besheen.” Now, “befarmā” does not have a direct translation in English, but it means something along the lines of 'please' or 'help yourself'. “befarmā” is the informal version of the word. befarmā.

Matt: befarmā.

Leyla: And the formal version is befarmāyeen.

Matt: befarmāyeen.

Leyla: “besheen” is the informal way of saying 'sit!'. besheen!

Matt: besheen!

Leyla: So, together, “befarmā besheen” means ‘please sit!’. befarmā besheen!

Matt: befarmā besheen!

Leyla: Used on its own, “befarmā” could mean several things. If Matt comes over and I just say “befarmā” and point to a chair, that could also mean ‘please sit’, and he would understand that through context clues. If Matt comes over and I hand him a cup of tea and simply say “befarmā,” this means 'please help yourself' or 'here you are'! If I'm inviting Matt over to my house, I could say “befarmā khoonam!”

Matt: befarmā khoonam!

Leyla: “khoonam” means ‘my house’, so I'm saying ‘please come over to my house!’. Overall, you'll hear this word often in conversation on different occasions, as we've heard. Let's go through the three occasions once again. When offering an invitation, you could say “befarmā khoonam!”

Matt: befarmā khoonam!

Leyla: Or 'come over to my house!'. When offering a seat, you could say “befarmā besheen!”

Matt: befarmā besheen!

Leyla: Meaning ‘please have a seat!’. When offering something to drink, you could hand over the drink and simply say “befarmā.”

Matt: befarmā.

Leyla: Or “befarmā chāi.”

Matt: befarmā chāi.

Leyla: Meaning something along the lines of ‘please help yourself!’ or ‘have some tea!’. Now, let's go over these three occasions using the formal ‘you’! When offering an invitation to your house, you could say “befarmāyeen khoonam!”

Matt: befarmāyeen khoonam!

Leyla: To offer a seat, you say “befarmāyeen besheeneen!”

Matt: befarmāyeen besheeneen!

Leyla: So, as you can see, in this case, both “befarmāyeen” becomes conjugated formally as does the verb ‘to sit’. The command ‘sit!’ is “besheen” informally and “besheeneen” formally, so befarmāyeen besheeneen!

Matt: befarmāyeen besheeneen!

Leyla: And lastly, to simply offer a drink, you say “befarmā” for informal ‘you’ and “befarmāyeen” for formal. befarmāyeen.

Matt: befarmāyeen.

Leyla: The rest of the dialogue was very easy to understand with the vocabulary we learned in Lesson 13, so let's listen to the entire conversation one last time together!

salām matt. khosh āmadee!

Matt: mamnoon-am. shomā chetor-een?

Leyla: bad neestam, khaylee mamnoon. tō khoob-ee?

Matt: khoob-am merci.

Leyla: befarmā besheen.

Matt: merci.

Leyla: chāi meekhoree?

Matt: balé, chāi meekhoram.

Leyla: bā ghand yā shekar?

Matt: dō ghand lotfan.

Leyla: bāshé, befarmā, een ham dō ghand.

Matt: khaylee mamnoon.

Leyla: Hopefully, this time around, you understood even more of the conversation. Let's move on to some more vocabulary you need to know when hosting or being hosted! Let's say Matt is sitting at his in-laws' house, and they ask him, “gorosné-yee?”

Matt: gorosné-yee?

Leyla: Which means ‘are you hungry’? If it was the other way around, and Matt was asking his in-laws the question, he would use the formal version of the word, which is “gorosné-yeen?”

Matt: gorosné-yeen?

Leyla: Another point we've made already is that the formal ‘you’ conjugation of the word is the same as ‘you’ plural form, so if Matt wants to ask both of his in-laws if they're hungry, he could still use this word. gorosné-yeen?”

Matt: gorosné-yeen?

Leyla: And to answer, Matt would either say 'I'm hungry', or “balé, gorosnam-é…”

Matt: balé, gorosnam-é.

Leyla: Or “na, gorosné neestam.”

Matt: gorosné neestam.

Leyla: Now, a cultural note here, adhering to the rules of “tārof”: When you go to someone's house and they ask you if you're hungry, you will rarely say 'yes, I'm hungry'. Rather, you'll shake your head and say something like 'no, I just ate', and your host will bring you food anyway. ‘No, thank you, I just ate’ is “na, tāzé khordam.”

Matt: na, tāzé khordam.

Leyla: And now, ‘are you thirsty?’ in the informal sense would be “teshné-yee?”

Matt: teshné-yee?

Leyla: And the formal version would be “teshné-yeen?”

Matt: teshné-yeen?

Leyla: We're going to continue learning more vocabulary dealing with food in the next lesson, and it's a big part of any culture's vocabulary, but for now, that's the end of Lesson 15.

Matt: We hope you enjoyed the lesson.

Leyla: Thank you so much for joining us! Again, our website is at chaiandconversation.com with “chai” spelled C-H-A-I. You can listen to the podcasts on YouTube or on Facebook!

Matt: We look forward to you joining us next time on Chai and Conversation!

Leyla: And until then, bé omeedé deedār from Leyla…

Matt: And khodāhāfez from Matt!