1 8.8 Cultural Notes and Extra Online Materials

Cultural Notes

Good Morning/Good Afternoon/Good Evening/Good Night

In English, we generally wish each other good morning, good afternoon, good evening, good night, and good day. But in Iran, native speakers, generally speaking, do not greet each other in these ways. People generally say سلام/درود, etc.

Instruction and Polite Requests

Generally, when you learn Persian, your instructor—including me—teaches you to use شما form of imperative construction to express polite requests/instructions. However, when you travel to Iran, native speakers typically use the subjunctive form to express polite requests/instructions. You can observe by watching any recipe video by a native Persian speaker. All the written instructions on the roadside and elsewhere in Persian are also written in subjunctive.

Letter Writing

Letter writing was very prominent in Iran. However, after the new development in technologies, and telecommunication boom, people bought mobile phones and now the letter writing does not happen very much.

Festivals

Persian/Iranian festivals can be divided in two parts, namely, national festivals and religious festivals. On national festivals Like Norouz, the whole country enjoys a break from work. All the offices, colleges, schools, and other institutions are closed.