Getting Attention

Leyla: salām bé hamegee, welcome to lesson 62 of Chai and Conversation Speak Program. salām Vijay, how are you doing? 

Vijay: khaylee khoob-am, merci! I'm very well, thank you! How are you? chetor-ee? 

Leyla: Wonderful! We are back with another conversation from Persian Conversations. It's in the same series. Last time, we heard how to greet someone on the street, and this time, we're going to be listening to another very short and sweet conversation from the same two people, I believe. Is that right? 

Vijay: No, actually, I think this time it's different people. It's a boy and a woman, so there's a bigger age difference this time. 

Leyla: Okay, then let's get right into the lesson! Okay, wonderful, and as you saw last time, these are very short and sweet conversations, so we're going to listen to the full thing in the beginning, and then we'll go over it line by line and figure out what the words and phrases are in that conversation and how we can use them in our own conversations daily. So without further ado, ready to listen to this conversation, Vijay? 

Vijay: hāzer-am, I’m ready! 

Leyla: Perfect!

Boy: āy khānom! 

Woman: bā man hasteen? 

Boy: balé. een keefé poolé shomā neest ké rooyé zameen oftādé? 

Woman: āh, āré, aslan motevajé nashodam kay oftād! mamnoon.

Leyla: Okay. I think it's the same people, Vijay!

Vijay: Really? Because he says “ay khānom!” 

Leyla: Ohh! Okay, well, let's get into it; let's get into why that is! So let's listen to it from the very beginning…

Vijay: Or “āy khānom!” is what he says. 

Leyla: Yeah, so let's listen to that first line!

Boy: āy khānom! 

Leyla: So he goes “āy khānom!”

Vijay: āy khānom! 

Leyla: And we heard in the last lesson that he yelled out to the woman “āhāy!” Remember?

Vijay: āhāy! 

Leyla: Yes, and that is only for when you know someone well. You wouldn't really get attention of someone like that if you don't know them well, so in this case, he says “āy khānom!"

Vijay: āy khānom! 

Leyla: “khānom” means 'ma'am', so 'excuse me, ma'am!'. āy khānom! 

Vijay: āy khānom! 

Leyla: Okay, but despite the fact that he's saying "āy khānom!" I do think this is an adult. Based on this sounds, it sounds like the same people, but it does sound like he's just saying 'excuse me, ma'am!', which, just like in English, we would still say that even if we're not a kid, if it's some woman that we don't know. These are two other people. Obviously, it's not his friend that he's taking around in his car! Okay, let's repeat that again. āy khānom!  

Vijay: āy khānom!

Leyla: Okay, next line! 

Woman: bā man hasteen?

Leyla: Really good, okay! She goes, “bā man hasteen?” Okay, so “bā” means ‘with’. bā. 

Vijay: bā. 

Leyla: “man” means ‘me’. man. 

Vijay: man. 

Leyla: hasteen.

Vijay: hasteen. 

Leyla: And that means ‘you are’, so 'you are with me? You're talking to me?' That's the way, that's the phrase for ‘you're talking to me? Are you with me? Is this directed towards me?'. This is interesting because she uses the formal ending, except for it's the formal conversational ending. As we've said many times before in Chai and Conversation, the written version of this would be “hasteed.”

Vijay: hasteed. 

Leyla: Right, but no one says that in conversation, even if they are speaking formally. In this case, we can tell that she's speaking to someone that she doesn't know. If it was a young boy, she would probably use the informal ending, though. She would say “bā man hastee?”

Vijay: bā man hastee?

Leyla: And that would show that it's a woman talking to a little boy, ‘oh little boy, are you talking to me? Are you with me?’, but in this case, she goes “bā man hasteen?”

Vijay: bā man hasteen? 

Leyla: So it's obviously someone who is either her age or an adult that she's talking to, and she's just saying, ‘are you with me? Are you talking to me?’ bā man hasteen? 

Vijay: Yeah, that's a really good point! I think I was thrown off by the cover illustration that, if you see…

Leyla: The AI cover illustration, yes! 

Vijay: No, no, I mean the illustration just above the dialog, if you go up a little bit, it looks…

Leyla: Oh, I see, you're right! Okay, but yes, it could be just a perspective shift that this is a man running after…

Vijay: It could even be the same guy as from the last dialog, who knows!

Leyla: Right, right, but yes. Not to harp on you too much, but yes, I believe this is two people the same age. Okay, again, let's go from the beginning!

Boy: āy khānom! 

Woman: bā man hasteen?

Leyla: “bā man hasteen?” Okay, and then let's see what he says…

Boy: balé. een keefé poolé shomā neest ké rooyé zameen oftādé?

Leyla: Oof, that's a lot of words there, but let's break it down! He goes “balé.”

Vijay: balé.

Leyla: “een keefé poolé shomā neest ké rooyé zameen oftādé?” Okay. We've got a lot of ezāfés here, so let's go through! First of all, he goes “een.” This means ‘this’.

Vijay: een.

Leyla: Okay, and then let's look at “keefé poolé shomā.” “shomā,” as we said before, is the formal ‘you’. shomā.

Vijay: shomā.

Leyla: Okay, now let's look at “keefé poolé shomā.” We've said before that the “-é” sound is an ezāfé. When we're having describing words where you want to describe something, we use the “-é” to show that it belongs to the next word. We've said that you could use it as ‘of’. You could think of it as 'of', so “keefé poolé shomā” could mean ‘the purse of the money of you’. These words individually… “pool” means ‘money’. pool.

Vijay: pool.

Leyla: And remember, just like we said with “man,” don't say the English pronunciation! “pool” is the “lé” sound, is a hard “l” like that. pool.

Vijay: pool.

Leyla: And that means ‘money’. “keef” is the word for purse. keef.

Vijay: keef.

Leyla: So “keefé pool” means the ‘purse of money’, so it's a ‘money purse’. keefé pool.

Vijay: keefé pool.

Leyla: But he doesn't stop describing it there. He adds one more. keefé poolé shomā.

Vijay: keefé poolé shomā.

Leyla: So it means ‘the money’, ‘the purse of money of you’, ‘the money purse of you’. You could add a million adjectives this way, too. You could say “keefé poolé seeyāhé shomā.” That would mean ‘the black money purse…’ ‘Is this the black money purse of you?’. You could just keep adding “keefé poolé seeyāhé bozorgé shomā neest?” and this just shows that… that would be saying ‘the black, big money purse’. You could just keep adding describing words with the “-é” sound, “-é,” “-é,” “-é,” so just keep that in mind. “keefé poolé shomā” means ‘the money purse of you’. keefé poolé shomā. 

Vijay: keefé poolé shomā.

Leyla: And then “neest.”

Vijay: neest.

Leyla: And “neest” means ‘is not’. een keefé poolé shomā neest?

Vijay: een keefé poolé shomā neest?

Leyla: So ‘is this not your money purse?’, and then he goes “ké rooyé zameen oftādé.” “ké” means ‘that’. ké.

Vijay: ké.

Leyla: “rooyé zameen” means ‘on the ground’. rooyé zameen.

Vijay: rooyé zameen.

Leyla: And “zameen” is the word for ‘earth’ or ‘ground’ and “rooyé…” ‘on top of the earth’. “roo” is the word for ‘on’, so ‘on top of the earth’. rooyé zameen.

Vijay: rooyé zameen.

Leyla: And then oftādé, it has fallen. oftādé.

Vijay: oftādé.

Leyla: All together, it means ‘is this not the money purse of you that has fallen on the ground?’, so basically, 'is this not your purse, your wallet that's fallen on the ground?'. Let's repeat all of it together. We'll do it piece by piece: balé.

Vijay: balé.

Leyla: een keefé poolé shomā neest…

Vijay: een keefé poolé shomā neest…

Leyla: ké rooyé zameen oftādé?

Vijay: ké rooyé zameen oftādé?

Leyla: Wonderful, so 'this is not the money purse of you that's fallen on the ground?', and then let's listen to the last line…

Woman: āh, āré, aslan motevajé nashodam kay oftād! mamnoon.

Leyla: Well, that's very sweet. First she goes “āh!”

Vijay: āh!

Leyla: And that's just like the English ‘oh!’ ‘Oh!’ “āh!”

Vijay: āh!

Leyla: We have to, just as we have to pronounce the words correctly, we have to pronounce the filler words correctly, too! āh!

Vijay: āh!

Leyla: āré!

Vijay: āré!

Leyla: Okay, this is the informal ‘yeah’. ‘Oh, yeah’. āré.

Vijay: āré.

Leyla: aslan.

Vijay: aslan.

Leyla: And this means ‘at all’. aslan. 

Vijay: aslan.

Leyla: Okay, then “motevajé,” this is a great word. motevajé.

Vijay: motevajé.

Leyla: And it’s “motevajé nashodam.”

Vijay: motevajé nashodam.

Leyla: This is a compound verb meaning ‘notice, to notice’. 'I didn't become aware', it's literally 'I didn't become aware'. “motevajé shodan” is ‘to become aware’. motevajé nashodam.

Vijay: motevajé nashodam.

Leyla: Which means ‘I did not become aware’. motevajé nashodam.

Vijay: motevajé nashodam.

Leyla: “kay oftād.”

Vijay: kay oftād.

Leyla: And “kay” means ‘when’. kay.

Vijay: kay.

Leyla: And then “oftād” means ‘it fell’. oftād.

Vijay: oftād.

Leyla: “motevajé nashodam kay oftād,” meaning ‘I was not aware of when it fell’, and she adds an “aslan,” like ‘at all’. It’s an emphasis word. ‘I did not notice at all when it fell!’. aslan motevajé nashodam.

Vijay: aslan motevajé nashodam.

Leyla: Let's say that again. aslan motevajé nashodam.

Vijay: aslan motevajé nashodam.

Leyla: kay oftād.

Vijay: kay oftād.

Leyla: Perfect, and she could have said “ké oftād,” which is why I was confused. “ké” would have been ‘that’, so “ké oftād,” ‘that it fell’. That would have also made perfectly perfect sense, but she's saying 'I didn't even notice when it fell'! Okay, that's fine, and then she goes “mamnoon.”

Vijay: mamnoon.

Leyla: And this is kind of a formal way to say ‘thank you’, so again, they started off kind of formally. In the end, she's saying mamnoon in a kind of formal way. mamnoon.

Vijay: mamnoon.

Leyla: Of course, we have many words for thank you. She could have also said “merci.”

Vijay: merci.

Leyla: But she chose this a little bit more formal, a little bit more dignified version, and that is mamnoon.

Vijay: mamnoon.

Leyla: Okay. Now let's listen to the whole thing, and hopefully, this time, you will understand the entire conversation.

Boy: āy khānom! 

Woman: bā man hasteen? 

Boy: balé. een keefé poolé shomā neest ké rooyé zameen oftādé? 

Woman: āh, āré, aslan motevajé nashodam kay oftād! mamnoon.

Leyla: All right, and that is the end of that conversation. Is there anything else that you wanted to point out about this, Vijay?

Vijay: Sure, again, the last sentence in this conversation… well, almost the last sentence. She said, “aslan motevajé nashodam kay oftād.” In English, we say 'I didn't notice at all when it fell out', and when we say that in English, that could have two different meanings in English. It could mean I… I was walking along and it fell out and I just didn't notice at all, but it could also mean I was walking along and it fell off and I didn’t notice whether it fell off just now or it fell off earlier or earlier than that. Here, I think, if I understand correctly, it's saying I didn’t notice the time that it fell out, right?

Leyla: Yes. Yeah, that's kind of what I gather as well. It's a kind of interesting way of saying it! That's why I was confused why she didn't say “ké oftād.”

Vijay: Right, absolutely. I mean, it could also be a typo or something! Who knows?

Leyla: Well, I mean, we're listening to it. She's definitely saying “kay oftād.”

Vijay: Ah, yeah, yeah!

Leyla: Let's listen to it one more time again, just in case.

Boy: āy khānom! 

Woman: bā man hasteen? 

Boy: balé. een keefé poolé shomā neest ké rooyé zameen oftādé? 

Woman: āh, āré, aslan motevajé nashodam kay oftād! mamnoon.

Leyla: Okay. Yeah, I think it makes sense! She's saying 'I wasn't aware when it fell. I didn't even notice that when it fell'.

Vijay: Absolutely, yeah, that makes sense.

Leyla: Perfect. yeah, wonderful! Okay, well, this was a short and sweet one! We'll be back with another conversation next time where we'll be covering another way of meeting and greeting some friends. We're going to continue on this theme for a bit, and then we're going to switch into some new territory. I'm super excited about this lesson series! Vijay, thank you so much for being here with me!

Vijay: Thank you!

Leyla: Yeah, and thank you to the students! Check out the bonus materials for this lesson; make sure that you have it down before going to the next one! These lessons are cumulative, so we are going to be learning a lot in this unit. Thank you for joining us, and until next time, khodāhāfez from Leyla!

Vijay: And bé omeedé deedār from Vijay!