This page will delve into the basic conjugation of verbs in the Persian language in the present tense, continuing off what we've learned in previous lessons. Now that we have reached a point where we have covered most of the basics of sentence-making, you should be ready, by the end of this lesson, to be able to construct basic conversational sentences. You will also learn how to negate present-tense verbs.

Present Stem

The fundamental aspect about Persian verbs is the necessity to obtain the present stem of the verb in question. This is an incredible important aspect that many fail to grasp early on when learning the language as many early learners tend to utilize the past stem, accidentally forming the imperfective past rather than the imperfective present, which can sound weird to natives. 

General patterns to obtain the present stem from the ending of the infinitive of the stem do exist, but there are many exceptions to this rule, and it is better, after some point when you notice irregularities in verbs, to just learn the present stem manually on a case-by-case basis. These endings include:

• "-idan" (یدن) --> remove the "-idan" (یدن) all together, then conjugate.

  • pushidan (پوشیدن) --> push (پوش)

  • khābidan (خوابیدن) --> khāb (خواب)

  • boridan (بریدن) --> bor (بر)

• "khtan" (ختن) --> replace the "-khtan" (ختن) with "-z" (ز), then conjugate.

  • sākhtan (ساختن) --> sāz (ساز)

  • sukhtan (سوختن) --> suz (سوز)

  • rikhtan (ریختن) --> riz (ریز)

• "-ftan" (فتن) --> replace the "-ftan" (فتن) with "-b" (ب) or remove the replace the "-tan" (تن). (Depends, case-by-case basis.) Then conjugate.

  • yāftan (یافتن) --> yāb (یاب)

  • tāftan (تافتن) --> tāb (تاب)

  • shekāftan (شکافتن) --> shekāf (شکاف)

Again, there are many exceptions to these rules. Other Persian grammarians might include other endings such as "-stan" (ستن), but there are numerous exceptions to that rule to the point of where simply learning the present stem and then conjugating it would be more effective and accurate. Others might recommend simply listening to Persian media and then conjugating as they see fit. Ultimately, there are many ways to learn how to conjugate Persian verbs, particularly into the present-tense, but it is highly recommended for you to study Persian grammar from books/articles.

Conjugation

Conjugating for the present tense for verbs in Persian is trifaceted, obtaining the present stem of the verb, adding mi- (-می) to the beginning of a verb and conjugating using the same endings that we saw in Lesson 3 when conjugating the verb hastan (هستن). For your own personal benefit, the following is a table for verb conjugation endings in Persian, which ought to be memorized in order to grasp a fundamental knowledge of Persian verbs.

Conjugating

Now that the more difficult aspect has been covered, the rest is rather simple. Now that you have acquired the present-stem, and know the conjugation endings for verbs, you are ready to conjugate verbs into the present-tense.

Consider the verb pushidan (پوشیدن), meaning "to wear." How would you conjugate this into the first-person present tense? Using all the steps we discuss (obtaining the present stem, adding mi- (-می) to the beginning and changing the verb ending we get mipusham (می‌پوشم), meaning "I am wearing."

As you can see, Persian verb conjugation is quite simple and logical in essence. In contrast to English, Persian is far less irregular in nature and after you become acquainted with verb conjugation after a decent amount of practice, you should on your way to become able to make conversational sentences in Persian.

Negation

Negation in the present-tense is incredibly simple, simply replace the mi- (-می) at the beginning of the word with nemi- (-نمی), and conjugate exactly how you normally would conjugate a verb into the present-tense. Let's use rikhtan (ریختن) as our example verb, conjugating for the pronoun mā (ما).

1. Obtain the present stem.
   rikhtan (ریختن) --> riz (ریز)

2. Conjugate using nemi- (-نمی) and the verb ending for mā (ما), which is -im (ـیم).
   riz (ریز) --> nemirizim (نمی‌ریزم), "We are not spilling."