Speak / Lesson 69
Sports (Vocabulary Sprint)
This lesson is all about the wonderful words of sports- or varzesh in Persian. Varzesh literally means physical exercise, but it's the word used for sports as well. Many of the words for different sports in the Persian language come directly from the western word, but some of them are different. The most common sport in Iran (and in many, many parts of the world) is soccer, which in Persian is footbāl. The sport we know of as 'football' in the United States is called footbāl āmrikāyee (American football) in Persian. Below are some terms for some other common sports. Listen to the full lesson in order to learn the words for many other team and individual sports.
| soccer | footbāll | فوتبال |
| basketball | basketbāll | بَسکِتبال |
| bicycle riding | dō charkhé savāree | دو چَرخِه سَواری |
| golf | golf | گُلف |
| gymnastics | jeemnāsteek | ژیمناستیک |
| horse back riding | asb savāree | اَسب سَواری |
| wrestling | koshtee | کُشتی |
| tennis | tenees | تِنیس |
| bowling | bowleeng | بولینگ |
| bow and arrow | kamāngeeree | کَمانگیری |
| billiards | beelyārd | بیلیارد |
Listen Now
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: Welcome to Lesson 86 of Chai and Conversation. I'm Leyla and I'm joined by my husband Chris. Salam Chris
Chris: Salam! This is Chris. I'm Leyla's husband, and I am learning Persian along with you guys.
Leyla: And today we have a very fun topic for our as you know, we're in the vocabulary sprint unit, we have a very fun topic and that is the topic of sports or varzesh
Chris: Varzesh. Who doesn't love some varzesh
Leyla: and we actually get a lot of, I've asked for recommendations for this unit and we got a lot of people asking us to say the different words for sports. So this was a long overdue lesson. One thing What I discovered when doing some research for this topic is that this topic content contains a lot of borrowed words. So as we're going through it, there are very few of these words that are Persian words. But if anyone knows of any that I'm missing, please let me know that Yeah. Are there any
Chris: sports that are specific to the Persian culture?
Leyla: I mean, I don't know. I think that like obviously the most popular sport is football. Football, which is soccer.
Chris: Right? How about like backgammon? Where was that?
Leyla: Oh, that's a good point. But that's not it's a game. It's not a sport. It is takhteh.
Chris: takhteh
Leyla: That is a very Parisian game, or the game of chess is shatranj
Chris: shatranj.
Leyla: And that's been in Iran for a long time. or you can play cards and that's varagh bazee
Chris: varagh bazee
Leyla: So those are Persian words, but this is more we're talking about, you know, sports like sports sports
Chris: Running around kicking the sports ball
Leyla: Exactly. And so, first I wanted to start with team sports and that is varzeshe gooroohee
Chris: Varzesheh goroohee
Leyla: Goroohee, Gorooh is a group, Gorooh.
Chris: Gorooh.
Leyla: So gorohee,
Chris: Gorohee
Leyla: and varzesheh goroohee, team sports
Chris: varzesheh goroohee.
Leyla: So first of all a team in person, his team,
Chris: team.
Leyla: And then a player individual player is bazeekon
Chris: bazeekon
Leyla: Bazi is the word for play. So a player bazi kon,
Chris: bazi kon,
Leyla: the word for a coach is morabee
Chris: Morabee. Now what does that word sound like?
Leyla: Moraba is the word for jam. There you go. Moraba. The word for fans in a sport which is always very important is tarafdar.
Chris: Tarafdar.
Leyla: And that is the fan of a sport. And the what's the word for the person who referee the word for referee is davar
Chris: davar. So then what is a morabee?
Leyla: Morabee is a coach.
Chris: Oh coach- very similar to the Persian word for jam
Leyla: Unrelated but yes. And davar is the word for referee. So now let's go through the words for our sports which as I said is a lot of borrowed words, but it might be useful for you in conversation if this is something that you talk about often. The word for soccer is football,
Chris: football,
Leyla: as opposed to American football which is football amrikayee.
Chris: Football amreekayee
Leyla: Amrikayee
Chris: Amreekayee
Leyla: That's right. The word for basketball, basketball,
Chris: basketball.
Leyla: Sorry, but we just have to go through it. Baseball
Chris: Okay. That one is baseball. Baseball.
Leyla: Then there's volleyball.
Chris: Volleyball.
Leyla: The word for hockey is hockey roo yakh. Yeah.
Chris: Hockey roo yakh.
Leyla: So hockey on ice. Ice hockey.
Chris: Hockey roo yakh.
Leyla: Yes. Hockey roo yakh. there's water polo is also very popular. Water Polo.
Chris: All right, let me see if I just learned- vater Polo. Yes. This is like, I hope that this is a Friday. Today whenever this episode comes out, and like you've had a rough day, and you're like, Oh man, I got I love my Chai and Conversation. But today, my brain is so full, I'm going to hit it anyways and then you turn it on and we're covering sports. Sure That's awesome. And then it turns out all the sports words are already just American words with a funny accent. Bam.
Leyla: Okay, so individual sports now, varzesheh as well- varzeshhayeh tak nafaree. Varzeshhayeh tak nafaree.
Chris: Varzeshhayeh tak nafaree
Leyla: Okay, so tak nafar means just one person. So these are sports that you can do just by yourself. My favorite docharkheh savaree
Chris: docharkheh savaree
Leyla: docharkheh
Chris: docharkheh
Leyla: Docharkheh is a bike, savaree is riding. So bike riding. That's a good one person sport.
Chris: It's fun with other people too.
Leyla: That's right. There is golf.
Chris: Golf.
Leyla: And that is,
Chris: is it? Is it going to be golf? Yes.
Leyla: There's eskate bazee.
Chris: Eskate bazi.
Leyla: That's skating. Bazee is playing. So playing on skates, eskate bazi. gymnastic.
Chris: gymnastic.
Leyla: and that is gymnastics. Asb savari
Chris: Asb savaree
Leyla: Savaree . We've seen in docharkheh savaree, riding a bike, asb his horse. So, what is that?
Chris: That's horse riding
Leyla: exactly, asb savaree. Asb savaree. So something that Chris has been getting really into lately is doeedan,
Chris: Doeedan.
Leyla: Doeedan and that is
Chris: Oh, that's running.
Leyla: That's right doeedan. Now here's some very Iranian sports that Iranians are very big into- one is koshtee.
Chris: Koshtee
Leyla: and koshtee means, koshtan means to kill, koshtee is wrestling
Chris: koshtee, wrestling
Leyla: and that is very common with Iranians. There is vazneh bardaree
Chris: vasneh bardaree.
Leyla: So vazneh is weight
Chris: vazneh
Leyla: bardaree is lifting,
Chris: weightlifting
Leyla: Exactly. Vasneh bardaree
Chris: Vazneh bardaree
Leyla: And that's a sport that Iran actually does really well and there's always Iranians doing vazneh bardaree in the Olympics. That and koshtee. Another individual sport that's big is bowling.
Chris: Bowling,
Leyla: And that is bowling. There's beelyard.
Chris: Beelyard
Leyla: which is billiards, okay. Not a solo. Not necessarily but you could just play it by yourself right? Abd then kamangeeree
Chris: kamangeeree
Leyla: Bow and arrow. Kamangeeree. And then I thought we'd cover the word for winning. And losing, winning his bordan
Chris: Bordan
Leyla: and losing is bakhtan.
Chris: Bakhtan
Leyla: That's right. There was one other team sport that I forgot to mention. And that is tennis,
Chris: tennis. Also very big among Iranians. Okay, so again to just say working out you just say exercising, and it's the same word for sport and that is varzesh. Varzesh is exercising. And again, something that Chris has been getting really into lately.
I'm super strong right now, extremely fit.
Leyla: It's true. So these are our vocabulary words for different sports and different exercises. And we'll be back next time with another group of vocabulary around the different subjects so thank you for listening- khodahafez from Leyla.
Chris: And khodahafez from Chris, and I hope the rest of your Friday is awesome and filled with surprises like sports on Chai and Conversation.
Leyla: If it's a Friday- we'll see.