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Speak / Lesson 64

Transportation (Vocabulary Sprint)

In this lesson, Leyla and her husband Chris go over different vocabulary associated with the topic of transportation, which we are referring to as 'coming and going'- raft ō āmad. We discuss different modes of transportation including:

  • Bicycle - docharkhé
  • Car - māsheen
  • Bus - otoboos
  • Taxi - tāxee
  • Metro - metrõ
  • Airplane - havāpaymā
  • Motorcycle - motorcyclet

We also go over the vocabulary for walking and getting around in general. This lesson is part of our vocabulary sprint series, so we focus on transportation as a theme and learn as many words around the topic as we can.

GREETINGS:

salām
hello
سَلام
chetor-ee
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:

khoobam
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:  Learn Persian with trying conversation lesson 81

Hello and welcome to lesson 81 of Learn Persian with Chai and Conversation. So 81 is part of our unit of vocabulary sprints and I'm joined here by my husband Chris- Salam Chris.

Chris: Salam- Hello to all the Chai and conversation listeners out there.

Leyla: And so far in our vocabulary Sprint's we've gone over colors we've gotten over animals we've gotten over the time and date and we had a special lesson on nowruz and now we're going to cover one of my favorite topics and that is words that have to do with transportation.

Chris: Transportation is super important. We live in Austin, Texas, and we are struggling as a city with our transportation

Leyla: for sure. And and we have some strong opinions.

And and you know, when you're when you're learning a language or when kids are learning a language a lot of times, they're super excited about learning words about moving machines like automobiles and buses and train. So it's a good topic to cover, but it's also something that we all deal with every single day.

Chris: It's true. And to our listeners out there, who are in big Metroplexes and have subways and great public transportation, you're lucky and that's wonderful to our listeners out there who live in the suburbs or in the country where the idea of taking a subway somewhere would be ridiculous. That's another you know, you guys are struggling with your own forms of transportation.

Leyla: Yes. So without further ado, let's start learning where it's for transportation. So first, how do you see transportation in Persian one way to save Is vaseeleyeh naghleeyeh. So vaseeleh is the word for equipment or vaseeleh

Chris: vaseeleh

Leyla: Yeah, you can think of it as vessel, so a vessel or equipment or you know mode, that vaseeleyeh

Chris: vaseeleyeh

Leyla: and then naghleeyeh, which is transportation. So methods of transportation is basically what you're saying with that, and it's not a term that we use very often so we just wanted to go over very quickly, but so

Chris: so let's try that second word again though because that was a difficult one. Okay,

Leyla: vaseeleyeh

Chris: vaseeleyeh

naghleeyeh. let's not get too stuck on it. A very easy word for saying transportation or how to get somewhere is it raft o amad, very easy. So raft going raft, amad coming. Because in this conversation, I also didn't want to just limit ourselves to vehicles. I wanted to talk about what methods we have to get somewhere. So this is a more appropriate word than the first one we learned in and a lot easier to say. So it works out.

Chris: So again like circulation

Leyla: circulation. Exactly, raft o amad

Chris: raft o amad

Leyla: Exactly. So I wanted to start off with my very biased opinion of my favorite mode of transportation, which is charkh savari,

Chris: charkh savari, and charkh

Leyla: is the word for wheel.

Chris: charkh,

Leyla: Charkh. It's a difficult one.

And then savari

Chris: savari

Leyla: is, is riding so riding a wheel.

Chris: You're a unicyclist? That's right. I forgot that. That's what you do. That's

Leyla: our word for bike riding. So that's the verb to ride a bike is charkh savari

Chris: savari

Leyla: in the word for bicycle is docharkheh

Chris: docharkheh

Leyla: Yeah, you can see it's slowly like that if you want docharkheh

Chris: docharkheh

Leyla: Yes. That's it. charkh. Okay, so two wheels do.

Chris: I was gonna say yeah, docharkheh. Yep. It's we'll

Leyla: just like our word bicycle. two wheels. docharkheh.

Chris: Docharkheh.

Leyla: Yeah. And we also have a secharkheh, which is a tricycle, say cha. But we don't ride this around to get somewhere. But docharkheh is, is is a very awesome motor transportation. Chris and I both both do that a lot. We're both

Chris: avid bicyclists, but we're not trying to throw any shade on any try cyclists out there if you're riding a bicycle to work or to the playground, you know?

Right on Yeah.

Leyla: Yes. So we have the whole family biking as often as possible. So that's our we I wanted to Start there I know that often we start learning these types of vocabulary things with how to say car, but we're not gonna do that. So docharkheh is one way of getting around. Secharkheh is and it could be another way of getting around how about just to get back to the unicycle? How would you say unicycle? It would be tak charkh

Chris: takcharkh

Leyla: Say that three times fast.

Okay, so now let's go on to how you say car. So the word for car is masheen

Chris: masheen

Leyla: so there's a few different words for car Let's learn all of them. Masheen isn't the most common masheen

there's also automobile,

Chris: automobile.

Leyla: Those both words are foreign words, obviously machine sounds like machine and automobile.  So then Iranians came up with their own word, and it's the least used and it's khod ro

Chris: Khod ro.

Leyla: So that's a word that you will hear, but it's not really commonly used and that means it goes by itself khod ro.

Khod ro. It's like an automatic goer,

Chris: by itself.

Leyla: Yes, you don't have to work for it like you do for a bicycle, which is what I don't like.

So then to say riding a car, you say, masheen savaree

Chris: masheen savari,

Leyla: and that means riding a car. So there was charkh savaree

Chris: charkh savaree.

Leyla: And then there's masheen savari

Chris: machine savaree

Leyla: So both so there's you can ride a bike, you can ride a car. You can also say ranandegee kardan.

Chris: ranandegee kardan.

Leyla: And that means driving to drive.

ranandegee kardan, Yeah, so it's like car riding. bike riding? driving.

Chris: Okay, driving is different than riding.

Leyla: Yes, exactly.

Chris: So if you're in a automobile Yeah. And you're just riding it your savaree Yeah, you could also Yeah, if you're in the in the driver's seat then maybe you are kardan.

Leyla: ranandegee kardan

Chris: so what is kardan?

Leyla: To do so most of the verbs in Persian language are compound verbs so to do driving so then moving on with raft o amad coming and going, you can also go by foot, which is piadeh ravi

Chris: piadeh Ravi,

Leyla: and that is the verb to walk like walking. And so pied. piadeh means by foot pod. And so what root is that? pied? that's a that's a by foot

Chris: yeah, pedestrian pedestrian, or, what's a foot doctor called?

Leyla: pedontist? pedontist. That's right, exactly pied. Piadeh ravi. These are the words that

Chris: piadeh ravi and Ravi is to do well are

Leyla: going it's piadeh ravi. Oh

Chris: like raft o mad?

Leyla: Yeah, yes yes yes another word for walking is rah raftan

Chris: rah raftan

Leyla: rah is means the way raftan and means to go sit to go the way and that's how you say to walk rah raftan

Chris: rah raftan

Leyla: and if you're just walking somewhere like you're going on like a walk it's called rah paymayee

Chris: rah paymayee

Leyla: Yep. And so paymayee  like a trek a hike a traveling. So then another word that comes from that is hava payma.

Chris: hava payma

Leyla: and you know that one because our son rooz says it all the time he points up in the sky which is how he says hava payma. So what is that?

Chris: It's an airplane.

Leyla: That's right. So there's rah paymayee which is walking. Rah which means

Chris: rah paymayee which is I will walk through The way

pay my which is I will walk through The way

Leyla: Yes.

and hava payma

Chris: is I will fly the way

Leyla: exactly it will go through the air such an epic

Chris: poetic language. Yeah,

Leyla: it really is.

Chris: Just to walk somewhere you say, I will walk the path exactly, it really goes away.

Leyla: Well, it's interesting because a lot of these words are are like that you just say them all the time you don't think about them. But then once you start actually thinking about the root of the word or, or you just realize they're all such poetic words. There's, there's an interesting, it's a it's a lot of combining different ones. And I think that happens in English a lot to where you suddenly think of a word and you're like, Oh my gosh, I never thought of that.

Chris: Yeah, like marshmallow.

Leyla: Before you think about it too much. Let's learn a couple more words. And so to say that you're flying you say parvaz  we can't fly because we don't have wings but we can fly in an airplane so you could say I'm flying somewhere - parvaz

Chris: parvaz

Leyla: Flying. You can take a heleecoopter

Chris: Hold on. What does that mean? helicopter?

Leyla: heleecoopter

Chris: heleecoopter.

Leyla: Yeah, you gotta pronounce it correctly. Obviously. helicopter. Oh, there's also this one- teran.  What do you think that is?

Chris: teran

Leyla: teran is the word that comes from a foreign word. So the Iranian word for train is ghatar

Chris: ghatar

Leyla: Yeah, so it has the gh on that Chris has a little bit trouble with. Ghatar one word for train. But you can also say teran

Chris: Teran

Leyla: which a lot of a lot of technology words. Yeah, a lot of these technology words things that have been produced in other countries and come to Iran, we use a foreign word for it.

Chris: So like a Starbucks

Leyla: Starbucks. We don't have a Starbucks in Iran. And you know what the French word for train is teran. That's where we get it from. There's also another French word otoboos -their word for buses, obviously. And then taksee

Chris: taksee

Leyla: taksee. So for those of you who are trying to learn a lot of vocabulary in this vocabulary sprint, you have a few bonus. Easy words to That's

Chris: right. Just say the word you already know, funny. And they'll probably get what you're trying to say. Except for bicycles because you have to say some really weird stuff. That

Leyla: is true. Moving on to the water to say boat is ghayesgh. Yeah, and another difficult one. Ghayegh.

Chris: Ghayegh.

Leyla: You could also just say ship.

Chris: Keshtee

Leyla: Keshtee and that one's very easy to say, keshtee

Chris: Keshtee

Leyla: And to say riding a boat, you say? Ghayegh savaree

Chris: Ghayegh Savaree.

Leyla: Ghayegh savaree.

Chris: Ghayegh Savaree

Leyla: Yep. So there's ghayegh savaree. There's masheen savari

Chris: Machine savari.

Leyla: Savaree.

Chris: Savaree

Leyla: Great, perfect. Good. And then peeyadeh ravi

Chris: piadeh ravi

Leyla: And that is walking. One more mode of transportation that I wanted to talk about is the underground which we have a very amazing underground system the best I've ever seen in the world. I haven't been to Japan. I've heard that one's really good. But of Paris, New York everywhere. Tehran has the best underground called the metro.

Chris: The Metro.

Leyla: Yeah, very clean, easy. We actually have air conditioners down there, they have TVs in there, amazing Metro

Chris: Metro.

Leyla: And so I wanted to do one other thing and that is talking about

Chris: the space travel

Leyla: That's a good one too.

Chris: Let's talk about space travel.

Leyla: We're gonna leave space travel because it doesn't have much to do with transportation yet but I wanted to talk about the roads that we take

Chris: or if Elon Musk is listening. You just lost a subscriber

Leyla: said the sidewalk is called peeyadeh ro,

Chris: Peeyadeh ro

Leyla: Okay, so that's where you walk by foot.

Chris: Okay,

Leyla: yeah, peeyadeh ro. There's the kheeyaboom

Chris: Kheeyaboon

Leyla: And that means Street. Kheeyaboon

Chris: Kheeyaboon.

Leyla: And there's also a station and that is called Eestgah

Chris: Eestgah

Leyla: yep. And eestgah is a station, that's where your buses are, your trains are etc. And that, my friends is a lot of different words that we are learning for transportation. That's going to conclude our our vocabulary words.

Chris: Okay, and until we get the rocket ships and the self driving cars and all that.

Leyla: That's right. Well, okay. Okay, let's just do your rocket ship just just as satisfied. Okay,

Chris: bonus round.

Leyla: Yes. Is mooshak

Chris: mooshak, I can't believe we left off that word, That's the best word- mooshak.

And

Leyla: actually, we just got our first woman that's going to be on the moon is gonna be an Iranian American woman. So it's a good she's gonna go up in a mooshak.

Chris: Mooshak. I love it.

Leyla: We'll keep you guys updated on that.

Chris: And if you're riding in a mooshak, is that mooshak savaree?

Leyla: Very good. Chris is very good at applying words that we've learned in new ways.

Chris: And if you're riding in a mooshak is that mooshak kardan?

Leyla: no, that's wrong. Oh, I don't know what it would be. We have to we have to look into it. And we're gonna add that to our bonus

Chris: material.

Leyla: Our website for this lesson that we're going to wrap it up and thank you, so much for listening and we'll see you next time. Khodahafez from Leyla

Chris: Khoda hafez from Chris. Hope you enjoyed this. lightning round of transportation