Meeting Up with Friends

Leyla: salām bé hamegee and welcome to Lesson 63 of Learn Persian with Chai and Conversation! I'm joined today with our dear guest, Vijay. salām, Vijay!

Vijay: salām, leylā! hālet chetor-é?

Leyla: khoob, khaylee mamnoon, tō chetor-ee?

Vijay: manam khoob-am, merci.

Leyla: As you heard in the last couple of episodes, Vijay is joining us for this unit to listen to different dialogues that take place in the Persian language. Before we get started, Vijay, could you tell us a little bit about the dialogie we are listening to today?

Vijay: Sure, this dialog is just two people who are meeting up after a long time. They’re friends who haven't seen each other for a while, and they're, they want to catch up with just what's been going on since the last time they met.

Leyla: Okay, perfect, then let's listen to the full thing together! It's a little bit longer than the ones that we had the past couple of times, so let's listen! It's about 30 seconds long. Let's listen to the whole thing, and, as always, we'll go through it bit by bit, piece by piece, and talk about what we’ve listened to. Here we go!

Sara: bah! salām farzeen, chetor-ee?

Farzeen: salām bé rooyé māhet! bad neestam. khosh meegzaré?

Sara: shomā-rō nemeebeeneem na. cherā paydāt neest?

Farzeen: yé chand modat hast mashghoolé kār shodam.

Sara: jedee? ché kāree?

Farzeen: bāyad mofasal barāt ta'reef konam. shomāréyé telefonet hamoon shomāréyé ghablee-yé zang bezanam bāhāt gharār bezāram.

Sara: āré. pas montazeré tamāset-am. fe'lan khodāhāfez. māsheen-rō doobl pārk kardam.

Farzeen: khoshhāl shodam deedamet. borō, khodā negahdār!

Leyla: All right, that was really good! Any first impressions, anything you want to point out, Vijay?

Vijay: I think just towards the end is probably the most challenging part for people who are learning Persian because there's a whole bunch of things that he's saying that he'll do in order to get in touch with, with this other lady, with Sara.

Leyla: Yes, and also, I noticed it's a lot faster than the ones that we've listened to before, so I'm actually going to play it a little bit slower again one more time so we can listen to it at 0.75x speed. There's also a lot of tārof that's happening in this conversation. It's two people meeting up, and then a lot of tārof is happening in the beginning, so I'm excited to talk about that!

Vijay: Yeah, that's right. We have a little bit of… we'll be getting into more tārof in the later lessons. This is a little teaser for now!

Leyla: Okay, good, good, and it's something that when you’re speaking in Persian, you have to know these! This is… you spend a lot of time tārofing in conversation. You don't just get to the point. A lot of the things that I like about tārof is that it's a lot like what we have here in Texas. Vijay and I both live in Texas, where we don't just get to the point. We really skirt around issues. You go to the cashier, they first ask, “How're you doing? How's your weekend going? What're you up to later?” and you don't even know this person! It's the same in Iranian culture. In the Persian language, there are all these phrases that even if people are strangers, you just have to know to use with people. It's the same here where these are two friends and they have to use these tārof phrases.

Vijay: Absolutely!

Leyla: Let's listen to the full thing again at 0.75x speed, and again, don't worry if you don't catch a lot of it! We're going to go through it nice and slowly, sentence by sentence.

Sara: bah! salām farzeen, chetor-ee?

Farzeen: salām bé rooyé māhet! bad neestam. khosh meegzaré?

Sara: shomā-rō nemeebeeneem na. cherā paydāt neest?

Farzeen: yé chand modat hast mashghoolé kār shodam.

Sara: jedee? ché kāree?

Farzeen: bāyad mofasal barāt ta'reef konam. shomāréyé telefonet hamoon shomāréyé ghablee-yé zang bezanam bāhāt gharār bezāram.

Sara: āré. pas montazeré tamāset-am. fe'lan khodāhāfez. māsheen-rō doobl pārk kardam.

Farzeen: khoshhāl shodam deedamet. borō, khodā negahdār!

Leyla: Okay, perfect! Hopefully, you picked out a little bit more of this. We are going to keep it at this speed as we listen to it sentence by sentence now, and at the end, we'll listen to it full speed again, and hopefully, you'll be able to understand the whole thing. Okay, let's go through the first phrase:

Sara: bah! salām farzeen, chetor-ee?

Leyla: Okay, this should be very clear to all Chai and Conversation listeners that have made it this far, but let's repeat it together! First, she says, “bah! salām farzeen, chetor-ee?”

Vijay: bah! salām farzeen, chetor-ee?

Leyla: Very good! “bah” is just like ‘wow!’. This is someone that she is friends with and she hasn't seen in a long time, and she is delighted, so she's saying “bah!” bah!

Vijay: bah!

Leyla: Then she says, “salām farzeen,” and, of course, what does “salām” mean, Vijay?

Vijay: ‘Hi’, or ‘peace’, also, yeah.

Leyla: Yes, it's the most common form that we have of saying ‘hello’. “salām farzeen,” and his name is Farzeen, so “salām.”

Vijay: salām.

Leyla: farzeen.

Vijay: farzeen.

Leyla: And then she asks, “chetor-ee?”

Vijay: chetor-ee?

Leyla: I think we learn this in Lesson 1 of Chai and Conversation! What does that mean, Vijay?

Vijay: ‘How are you?’!

Leyla: Perfect, and what does this tell us about their relationship, the word that she used?

Vijay: I think it tells us that they're pretty close friends because she said “chetor-ee?” so she's being very informal with him. They're not on very formal or polite terms. They're on first-name terms. They're very familiar with each other.

Leyla: Exactly, she's not saying “chetor-een?” or even, if it was a more formal person, she would ask “hālé shomā chetor-é?” probably. Let's repeat that: hālé shomā chetor-é?

Vijay: hālé shomā chetor-é?

Leyla: But instead of saying that, she just goes “chetor-ee?”

Vijay: chetor-ee?

Leyla: Perfect, and as always, when I say a word and Vijay repeats it, you should be repeating it along with him. Let's repeat the whole phrase: bah! salām farzeen, chetor-ee?

Vijay: bah! salām farzeen, chetor-ee?

Leyla: All right, and let's listen to what Farzeen has to say for himself!

Farzeen: salām bé rooyé māhet! bad neestam. khosh meegzaré?

Leyla: Oh, okay, this is a really good one! He says, “salām bé rooyé māhet!”

Vijay: salām bé rooyé māhet!

Leyla: Okay, so this is our first phrase of tārof. “roo” is the word for ‘face’. roo.

Vijay: roo.

Leyla: “rooyé māhet,” do you recognize any other words in there?

Vijay: “māh” means ‘moon’, so ‘the face of your moon’, literally.

Leyla: That's right! “salām bé,” “bé” means ‘to’, “rooyé māhet,” 'your face that's like the moon', basically.

Vijay: Yeah, ‘your moon-like face’!

Leyla: ‘Your moon-like face’, exactly, so it's an adjective. We're describing the face as a moon, and this is very common in Iranian culture. When you want to say someone is very sweet-looking, you say “khaylee māh-é,” or if you want to say someone is very beautiful, you say that they are like the moon, so that's what he's saying here. It's, again, a tārof phrase. He's not literally saying she looks like the moon. He's just saying ‘oh, hello there, sweet thing!’ or something, ‘you sweet person!’ or whatever. That would be a more… translation to English, but we don't really talk like this to acquaintances in the English language, so it's kind of hard to translate. It would be like someone saying, like, ‘hi, sweetie!’, but not in a derogatory way or a demeaning way, just very common.

Vijay: I just translated it as ‘nice to see you’ because that's how we’d usually say it in English, right? Just ‘nice to see your face again!’, ‘nice to see you!’…

Leyla: Yes, but in typical Iranian fashion, it's very exaggerated. ‘Hello to your moon-like face!’

Vijay: Exactly!

Leyla: salām bé rooyé māhet!

Vijay: salām bé rooyé māhet!

Leyla: I also want to point out here that “māhet,” so he's referring to her in informal as well. It's reciprocal. “chetor-ee?” “rooyé māhet.” They're both speaking informally to each other, and then he responds, “bad neestam.”

Vijay: bad neestam.

Leyla: Which, again, back to Lesson 1 or 2 of Chai and Conversation, means 'I'm not bad'. bad neestam.

Vijay: bad neestam.

Leyla: Vijay does a really good job here of pronouncing. We have the word “bad” in English, but we don't pronounce it like that. “bad," we just make it a short “a.” bad neestam.

Vijay: bad neestam.

Leyla: Then he goes, “khosh meegzaré?”

Vijay: khosh meegzaré?

Leyla: And that means ‘is it going? Are you happy? Is it going well?’ so basically, 'how's it going?'. The literal way that you ask this in Persian is, “khosh” is the word for ‘happy’ or ‘good, well’. khosh.

Vijay: khosh.

Leyla: “meegzaré” means ‘is it passing? Is it going?'. meegzaré.

Vijay: meegzaré.

Leyla: 'Is time going by well? How's it going? Is it going well?', khosh meegzaré?

Vijay: khosh meegzaré?

Leyla: Perfect, so let's repeat this full phrase, and if you're watching this lesson, you'll see these words on your screen. You can read it along with us. If you're listening, try to repeat it. salām bé rooyé māhet!

Vijay: salām bé rooyé māhet!

Leyla: bad neestam.

Vijay: bad neestam.

Leyla: khosh meegzaré?

Vijay: khosh meegzaré?

Leyla: Okay, and then let's hear her response…

Sara: shomā-rō nemeebeeneem na. cherā paydāt neest?

Leyla: This is another tārof bit in Persian. She first says “shomā-rō nemeebeenam na.” First of all, we know the word “na” means ‘no’. na.

Vijay: na.

Leyla: Then she goes “shomā-rō nemeebeenam,” and that means that 'since I don't see you'. He's asking ‘is it going well?’, and she goes, 'since I'm not seeing you, no, it's not going well!' This is another tārof thing in the Persian language. You might have heard this phrase “jāt khālee-yé,” meaning ‘your place is empty’. It's always really important to point out that if the other person is there, you can't be having fun, so she's saying 'if I'm not seeing you, no, it's not going well! I haven't seen you in so long!', but it's an exaggeration. It's a tārof phrase. Maybe she's been having a great time! We don't really know; at least she's saying this to him!

Vijay: Yeah, I think… and also, she, she says, actually, if you pay attention to them really closely, she says, “shomā-rō nemeebeeneem na,” so 'if we don't see you', literally.

Leyla: That's right, and that's actually an interesting thing because she is switching to third person about herself and she also switched to “shomā,” so she's not saying “tō-rō nemeebeeneem,” so she… They have a fluid relationship, and we have a fluid relationship with language, so now she switched to formal for both her and him, so “shomā-rō nemeebeeneem na!” That's a good point. Okay, shomā-rō…

Vijay: shomā-rō…

Leyla: nemeebeeneem…

Vijay: nemeebeeneem…

Leyla: na!

Vijay: na!

Leyla: And “nemeebeeneem” is 'we don't see'. “shomā-rō,” “shomā” is ‘you (formal)’, and then “-rō” is our direct object marker, meaning that she's talking about him, so she's pointing it back to him. shomā-rō nemeebeeneem na.

Vijay: shomā-rō nemeebeeneem na.

Leyla: How would you explain that “-rō” for people that aren't familiar with that, that concept of the direct object marker, Vijay?

Vijay: Yeah, basically, in this sentence, it's just talking about who she is seeing or, in this case, who she hasn't been seeing, so 'if we don't see you, then I'm not happy. I'm not seeing you. You're the person who I'm not seeing'.

Leyla: shomā-rō nemeebeeneem.

Vijay: shomā-rō nemeebeeneem.

Leyla: Perfect, “shomā-rō nemeebeeneem na.” Another thing that I want to point out is that “-rō” is the way we say it in conversational Persian. “-rā” is actually the way it would be spelled. “-rā” is a direct object marker pointing us to you. ‘You’ are the direct object, so shomā-rō nemeebeeneem na.

Vijay: shomā-rō nemeebeeneem na.

Leyla: The direct object marker is definitely one of those things that you have to see over and over again in conversation to know how to use it, so I'm glad we're seeing it here.

Vijay: Absolutely!

Leyla: Then she asks, “cherā paydāt neest?”

Vijay: cherā paydāt neest?

Leyla: And again, she switches to informal. This is a really interesting little phrase here. She goes “cherā?” ‘why?’, “cherā?”

Vijay: cherā?

Leyla: And then “paydāt,” and that means, like, 'why aren't you found?'. ‘Found’, “paydā” means ‘to find’, so “paydāt” means ‘you are found’, and then “neest” means ‘are not’, so 'how come I can't find you? How come you're not around?' basically. 'Why aren't you around?' is how I would translate it. cherā paydāt neest?

Vijay: cherā paydāt neest?

Leyla: How did you translate that “paydāt neest,” Vijay?

Vijay: I think I said just ‘where have you been?’.

Leyla: Yeah, that's a good one. That's one of those things that it's good to have these dialogues because it’s not something that we would really use very much in conversation. “paydā” is used, for example, if you say “āh, keefam-ō paydā kardam!” ‘I found my purse!’. “paydā,” so ‘found’. 'Why haven't we found you?' cherā paydāt neest?

Vijay: Right, it's “paydā kardan,” ‘to find’.

Leyla: Yes. Yeah, and then here, it's like 'why aren't you around? Where are you?' cherā paydāt neest?

Vijay: cherā paydāt neest?

Leyla: Let's repeat that whole thing. shomā-rō nemeebeeneem na.

Vijay: shomā-rō nemeebeeneem na.

Leyla: cherā paydāt neest?

Vijay: cherā paydāt neest?

Leyla: Great, now, the next line:

Farzeen: yé chand modat hast mashghoolé kār shodam.

Leyla: Okay, so he goes, “yé chand modat hast mashghoolé kār shodam.” “yé chand modat hast," first, let's cover that. “yé” means ‘a’, and then “chand” means ‘few’. “modat” means ‘time’, and then “hast,” of course, means ‘is’, so 'it's a, it's a bit of time'. yé chand modat hast.

Vijay: yé chand modat hast.

Leyla: And then “mashghoolé kār shodam.”

Vijay: mashghoolé kār shodam.

Leyla: “mashgool” means ‘busy’, and then “mashghoolé kār,” ‘busy with work’. “shodam” is ‘I became’, so 'it’s a bit of time that I've become busy with work', “yé chand modat hast.” Let's talk about this word “modat” a little bit! A few different ways that you can use this is…

Vijay: Like 'it's been'… “modatee”, shāyad. 'It's been a little while, it took a little while to' do something.

Leyla: Yes, “modatee shodé,” 'it's been a while'. Yeah, exactly, the word ‘while’ is kind of… 'it's been a while that I've been busy with work'. That's a good, good way to describe it. yé chand modat hast.

Vijay: yé chand modat hast.

Leyla: 'It's been a little while', mashghoolé kār shodam.

Vijay: mashghoolé kār shodam.

Leyla: I have become busy with work. All right, then she says…

Sara: jedee? ché kāree?

Leyla: Okay, she first says, “jedee?”

Vijay: jedee?

Leyla: And this means ‘for real?’. jedee?

Vijay: jedee?

Leyla: Or, I guess, more literally, it means ‘seriously?’. “jedee boodan” is ‘to be serious’, so she's like ‘seriously?’. jedee?

Vijay: jedee?

Leyla: And then she goes, “ché kāree?” ‘What work?’. ché kāree?

Vijay: ché kāree?

Leyla: “ché,” of course, means ‘what’, and then “kāree,” ‘a work’, so ‘what work?’. ché kāree?

Vijay: ché kāree?

Leyla: All right, and he responds…

Farzeen: bāyad mofasal barāt ta'reef konam. shomāréyé telefonet hamoon shomāréyé ghablee-yé zang bezanam bāhāt gharār bezāram.

Leyla: Okay, that was a lot right there, so let's break it down! He goes, “bāyad mofasal barāt ta'reef konam.” First of all, “ta’reef kardan” means ‘to tell, to spill the beans’. ta’reef kardan.

Vijay: ta’reef kardan.

Leyla: That was great pronunciation! You heard Vijay goes “ta'reef.” It's because this is a word that comes from Arabic, and it has that “'” sound in the middle of it. ta’reef konam.

Vijay: ta’reef konam.

Leyla: That means 'I'll explain, I'll describe, I'll tell you', and he goes “bāyad.” “bāyad” means 'I have to’. bāyad.

Vijay: bāyad.

Leyla: ‘I must’, and then “mofasal” means ‘really completely, completely’. mofasal.

Vijay: mofasal.

Leyla: And then “barāt” means ‘to you’, so ‘I have to, to you, completely explain'. bāyad mofasal barāt ta'reef konam.

Vijay: bāyad mofasal barāt ta'reef konam.

Leyla: ‘I have to explain to you totally’. He has a lot to tell her, so he’s saying 'I can't just do it right here', “bāyad mofasal barāt ta'reef konam,” which means it's going to take a long time. Again, bāyad mofasal barāt ta'reef konam.

Vijay: bāyad mofasal barāt ta'reef konam.

Leyla: Then he goes, “shomāréyé telefonet hamoon shomāréyé ghablee-yé,” and we'll stop it right there. “shomāréyé telefonet,” that means ‘your telephone number’. “shomāré” is ‘number’; “telefon” is ‘telephone’, so shomāréyé telefonet.

Vijay: shomāréyé telefonet.

Leyla: And that completely means ‘your telephone number’. Then “hamoon” is one of those filler words that we have. “ham” is a word that means ‘same’ or ‘equal’. “hamoon” means ‘the same’. “shomāréyé telefonet hamoon,” ‘your telephone number is the same’. Then he goes, “shomāréyé ghablee-yé,” and “ghabl” means ‘previous’, so “shomāréyé ghablee” is ‘the previous number’. shomāréyé ghablee-yé.

Vijay: shomāréyé ghablee-yé.

Leyla: And that “-é” sound that he adds at the end means ‘is’, so ‘your phone number is that same phone number? Your telephone number is that same telephone number?’. “shomāréyé telefonet hamoon shomāréyé ghablee-yé.”

Vijay: shomāréyé telefonet hamoon shomāréyé ghablee-yé.

Leyla: It's kind of a little bit of a tongue twister, but ‘your phone number is that same phone number from before’, and then he goes, “zang bezanam.”

Vijay: zang bezanam.

Leyla: “zang bezanam” is the compound verb for ‘to ring’, and, as you know, there's a lot of compound verbs, and a lot of them have this word “zadan” in them. “zang zadan” is the compound verb for ‘to do a call’, but it’s kind of like ‘hit the phone’, 'I'm going to hit the phone', ‘if I hit the call’. zang bezanam…

Vijay: zang bezanam.

Leyla: …just means 'I'll call', and then “bāhāt gharār bezāram.” “bāhāt” means ‘with you’. bāhāt.

Vijay: bāhāt.

Leyla: “gharār” means a ‘plan’. Actually, it's more like a ‘contract’, but it's like a ‘plan’. “gharār,” “gharār bezāram,” 'I'm going to make a plan with you', so 'I'm going to call and make a plan with you'. Basically, he wants to get in touch so that he can make a plan to get together with her to tell her this long story about his work, which I'm sure is exactly what she was looking for! She's like “I just ran into you in the store. I was not looking for this many hours phone call, but fine!” Okay, okay, I bet that's what happened, anyway! He goes, again, that’s “bāyad mofasal barāt ta'reef konam.”

Vijay: bāyad mofasal barāt ta'reef konam.

Leyla: ‘I have to tell you completely, I have to tell you everything’. shomāréyé telefonet…

Vijay: shomāréyé telefonet…

Leyla: hamoon shomāréyé ghablee-yé…

Vijay: hamoon shomāréyé ghablee-yé…

Leyla: zang bezanam…

Vijay: zang bezanam…

Leyla: bāhāt gharār bezāram.

Vijay: bāhāt gharār bezāram.

Leyla: Perfect, and I'd say for the practice for this lesson, it’s really good to have someone that you can practice this dialog with and really practice saying this whole thing, all together. In this lesson, we're just practicing how to say them, but you should definitely practice on your own and get these all in one go. Okay, next… next section…

Sara: āré. pas montazeré tamāset-am. fe'lan khodāhāfez. māsheen-rō doobl pārk kardam.

Leyla: Okay, she goes “āré,” which, of course, we know means ‘yeah’. āré.

Vijay: āré.

Leyla: And she goes, “pas montazeré tamāset-am.” “pas” means ‘then’. pas.

Vijay: pas.

Leyla: Then she goes, “montazeré tamāset-am.”

Vijay: montazeré tamāset-am.

Leyla: “tamās” means ‘to get in touch’, ‘your contact to getting in touch’, “tamāset,” ‘you getting in touch’, and she says “montazeré tamāset-am.” “montazer boodan” means ‘to be waiting’, so “montazeré tamāset-am” together means ‘I am waiting for you to contact me’. montazeré…

Vijay: montazeré…

Leyla: tamāset-am.

Vijay: tamāset-am.

Leyla: So she goes, “pas montazeré tamāset-am.”

Vijay: pas montazeré tamāset-am.

Leyla: Yeah, 'I'm waiting for your, for your contact, for you to contact me', and then she goes, “fe'lan khodāhāfez.”

Vijay: fe'lan khodāhāfez.

Leyla: Which means ‘for now, goodbye’. Then she goes, “māsheen-rō doobl pārk kardam,” which is very like Iranians! She says, “māsheen-rō doobl pārk kardam.” “pārk kardan” means ‘to park’. pārk kardam.

Vijay: ‘I parked’, “pārk kardam.”

Leyla: Yes, ‘I parked’, and then “māsheen-rō," ‘my car’.

Vijay: māsheen-rō.

Leyla: And then “doobl pārk kardam” means 'I double-parked." doobl pārk kardam.

Vijay: doobl pārk kardam.

Leyla: “doobl” is easy because it's just ‘double’, so ‘I double-parked’… ‘I double-parked my car, I gotta go! I double-parked my car!’, which maybe is just an excuse because she's like 'I don't want to get into your work struggles or whatever', but maybe not. māsheen-rō doobl pārk kardam.

Vijay: māsheen-rō doobl pārk kardam.

Leyla: All right, and then he goes…

Farzeen: khoshhāl shodam deedamet. borō, khodā negahdār!

Leyla: This is one more tārof phrase where he goes, “khoshhāl shodam deedamet.”

Vijay: khoshhāl shodam deedamet.

Leyla: “khoshhāl shodam,” ‘I became happy’. khoshhāl.

Vijay: khoshhāl.

Leyla: shodam.

Vijay: shodam.

Leyla: ‘I became’, and “deedamet,” ‘that I saw you’. deedamet.

Vijay: deedamet.

Leyla: khoshhāl shodam deedamet.

Vijay: khoshhāl shodam deedamet.

Leyla: This is interesting. We don't really have the English equivalent of that in English, right, Vijay, where you can say “deedamet,” ‘I saw you’? It's all one word.

Vijay: Yeah. I guess it's like you're making… in Persian, you have to make it past tense along with the fact that you're saying that you became happy, so it's like ‘I became happy that I saw you’, and that’s just not the way that we usually say it in English.

Leyla: Right, right, and also just having the possessive, like “deedamet.” We wouldn’t really…

Vijay: Right, that's another thing that's really flexible about Persian. You can, instead of saying “deedam tō-rō” or something like that, you can just add the “-et” at the end of the verb: bebeenamet, deedamet…

Leyla: Right, exactly, exactly, and even “tamāset-am,” like “tamāset,” ‘your contact’, so it's ‘you contacting me’. 'I'm looking forward to you contacting me', but we add that to the actual word. tamāset, deedamet.

Vijay: Yeah.

Leyla: It's relating it with the other person…

Vijay: Absolutely.

Leyla: …in the actual word. Anyway, then he goes, “borō!”

Vijay: borō!

Leyla: That means ‘go!’. It's a command word. borō!

Vijay: borō!

Leyla: And then “khodā negahdār.”

Vijay: khodā negahdār.

Leyla: That is another common way of saying ‘goodbye’, and that means ‘God take care of you. Take care, God take care of you’. khodā negahdār.

Vijay: khodā negahdār.

Leyla: And just as in English, we have a lot of phrases that have ‘God’ in them. “Goodbye” even comes from a phrase that originally used to have ‘God’ in it, so it's not necessarily religious. It's just a lot of the words have God sprinkled into them, so same here. It's not that this guy is overtly religious. He's just saying ‘God, God bless, God bless, God take care’. khodā negahdār.

Vijay: khodā negahdār.

Leyla: Okay, perfect! Is there anything else that you want to point out in this dialogue that we haven't before we listen to it again?

Vijay: No, I think that's about it! We've covered a lot, and, like you said, it's just a lot of tārof. I guess maybe one thing that would be interesting to point out that you sort of said already is that tārof even applies sometimes between really close friends, even if you're on very informal terms. These two people are mostly informal with each other, mostly using “tō” with each other, but still they feel a need to have some tārof towards each other, still show some politeness towards each other.

Leyla: Yeah, good point, and also that fluidity of the informal and the formal. Sometimes, you're using informal, and then to, to be very flowery and be very tārof-y, then you switch to formal. “shomā-rō nemeebeeneem na,” so even just like switching to third person for herself and switching to formal for him. I also, I thought that it was interesting seeing how much we add the possessive, like the second person. That was really interesting to me, too, because even when we say “salām bé rooyé māhet,” that's one way of saying it, but you can also say “māhé tō,” for example, if you want to string it out. There's ways to shorten phrases in Persian that we don't really have in English.

Vijay: Right, and I think it's also more… Especially in conversational Persian, which we focus on, there, you have a lot of shortening that you might not have in the written language as much, but in conversational Persian, really common.

Leyla: Even “bāyad mofasal barāt ta'reef konam,” he could have said “bāyad mofasal barāyé tō ta'reef konam,” for example, that's another thing.

Vijay: Exactly.

Leyla: It's kind of shortened. We have a lot of that going on here, so yeah, go through this dialog and see all the instances that you see of that possessive second person. Now we're going to listen to it again at that 0.75 speed. Hopefully, this time, you will understand the whole thing!

Sara: bah! salām farzeen, chetor-ee?

Farzeen: salām bé rooyé māhet! bad neestam. khosh meegzaré?

Sara: shomā-rō nemeebeeneem na. cherā paydāt neest?

Farzeen: yé chand modat hast mashghoolé kār shodam.

Sara: jedee? ché kāree?

Farzeen: bāyad mofasal barāt ta'reef konam. shomāréyé telefonet hamoon shomāréyé ghablee-yé zang bezanam bāhāt gharār bezāram.

Sara: āré. pas montazeré tamāset-am. fe'lan khodāhāfez. māsheen-rō doobl pārk kardam.

Farzeen: khoshhāl shodam deedamet. borō, khodā negahdār!

Leyla: Great! Hopefully, you understood all those words. We're going to listen to it one more time at the regular speed, which, when we first listened to it, I'm sure people were like “ahh!” but hopefully, this time, you'll understand the whole thing.

Sara: bah! salām farzeen, chetor-ee?

Farzeen: salām bé rooyé māhet! bad neestam. khosh meegzaré?

Sara: shomā-rō nemeebeeneem na. cherā paydāt neest?

Farzeen: yé chand modat hast mashghoolé kār shodam.

Sara: jedee? ché kāree?

Farzeen: bāyad mofasal barāt ta'reef konam. shomāréyé telefonet hamoon shomāréyé ghablee-yé zang bezanam bāhāt gharār bezāram.

Sara: āré. pas montazeré tamāset-am. fe'lan khodāhāfez. māsheen-rō doobl pārk kardam.

Farzeen: khoshhāl shodam deedamet. borō, khodā negahdār!

Leyla: All right, perfect, and that's the end of our lesson! Make sure that you go through, on the website, go through the lesson guide, and listen to this. You can listen to it line by line, word by word, and get all of these words added to your vocabulary. Vijay, thank you so much for joining me on today's lesson!

Vijay: Thank you, khaylee mamnoon!

Leyla: And we'll be back with the next lesson where we'll listen to another new dialogue. khodāhāfez bé hamegee!

Vijay: And bé omeedé deedār!