5.5 Grammar: Simple Past Tense
Verb “to be” in the Past
Simple Past Tense
In Chapter 2, we learned verb “to be” in the present tense, which is است/ هست. Today, in this lesson, we are going to learn about the verb “to be” in the past tense. Simple past tense in Persian shows an action that happened and was completed in the past.
Previously we learned that in order to make a sentence in present tense we need to use present stem of the verb. to make a sentence in past tense we need past stem of the verb. as you see in the table below, to form simple past tense, we remove the ن from the end of infinitive form.
For example:
| Infinitive Form | Past | Present Stem |
|---|---|---|
| بودن (to be) | بود (was) | هست (am) |
| دیدن (to see) | دید (saw) | بین (see) |
Here, I have made a list of all the English pronoun, with their Persian equivalents with verb “to be” in the past tense which would be بود.
As always, we must add verb ending that matches with the noun/pronoun when we conjugate them.
Conjugation table:
| Verb “to be” in the Past Tense + Verb Ending | Plural Pronoun | Verb “to be” in Past Tense + Verb Ending | Singular Pronouns |
|---|---|---|---|
| دیدیم | ما | دیدم | من |
| دیدید | شما | دیدی | تو |
| دیدند | آنها | دید | او |
Here is an example of the verb “to be” in the past sentence.
| English | Persian |
|---|---|
| There was a boy in this room. | یک پسر در این اتاق بود |
Common Verbs with Present and Past Stems
| Translation | Present Stem | Past Stem | Infinitive Form |
|---|---|---|---|
| To come | آی | آمد | آمدن |
| To go | رو | رفت | رفتن |
| To read | خوان | خواند | خواندن |
| To eat | خور | خورد | خوردن |
| To cook | پز | پخت | پختن |
| To see | بین | دید | دیدن |
| To arrive | رس | رسید | رسیدن |
| To become | شو | شد | شدن |
| To say | گوی | گفت | گفتن |
| To write | نویس | نوشت | نوشتن |
Exercise
Read the following text and rewrite it in past tense:
|
مادرم امروز به ایران می رود. بعضی از اقوام ما در تهران زندگی می کنند. مادرم در تهران چند روز می ماند. بعد از چند روز او به شیراز میرود. وقتی به شیراز می رسد با یک تور تفریحی به جنوب می رود. او بعد از تور به تهران بر میگردد و بقیه دوران سفر را در تهران می ماند
|
| Past tense text:
|
Grammar Point: Suffix Pronoun
In the Persian language, suffix pronouns are connected to the end of a word and can not appear alone.
Here is a chart of suffix pronoun table:
| Plural | Singular | |
|---|---|---|
| مان + word | م + word | 1st Person |
| تان + word | ت +word | 2nd Person |
| شان + word | ش + word | 3rd Person |
The word can be:
| Combination | Example |
|---|---|
| Noun + suffix pronoun | کتاب +ش = کتابش |
| Preposition + suffix pronoun | برای + او = برایش |
| Verb + suffix pronoun | می بینم + او را = می بینمش |
Exercise
Read the following text and mark all the suffix pronouns:
Activity
Please choose the correct past form of the verb “to be” to fill in the blanks.
!سپاس
