Verbs: Present Simple

In order to be able to form the present simple, you should know the “present stem” of the verb. As the number of simple verbs in Persian is quite small and the past and present stems of verbs are similar to each other, this is not a big problem.

Here is the general formula for present simple verbs: (from left to right):

The stress is always on the “می” syllable. The suffixes are the same with past simple except for one of them (the third person singular). The conjugation of a verb in the present simple is given below. Note again that here, we are dealing with the present stem of the verb rather than the past stem.

As we can see in the examples, unlike the past simple tense where the third person singular suffix is null, the suffix "د َ " is used for the third person singular verb in present simple verbs. Additionally, it is worth noting that a "half-space" is used between the "می" prefix and the rest of the verb. This means that the last letter of "می" is written as if it is at the end of a word, but the next letter is written very close to it.

Pretty much like the English present simple, the present simple in Persian talks about actions or states in the present time, things that always happen, things that will happen in future, and general facts.

There are two verbs in Persian that have different present simple conjugations; “to be” and “to have”. Let’s start with the easier one: “داشتن” (“to have”). The only difference between this verb and other verbs is that the prefix “می” is omitted here.

The second exception, “to be”, is more complicated. Except in the third person singular, the verb is nothing but the agreement suffix that directly attaches to the previous word.

And here are some examples:

In the last two examples, the words preceding the verb end in vowels (“خسته” means “tired” and “ترسو” means “coward”) and therefore the consonants “ا” (here serving as a glottal stop) and “ی” (“y”) go in the middle to prevent two vowels being pronounced right after each other.

Additionally, when the word “است” follows a vowel, it can optionally merge with the preceding vowel:

Another odd thing about the verb “بودن” is that its present simple form is in no way related to its present stem (which is “باش”). As you will see later, the present stem appears in subjunctive and imperative forms of the verb.

What we saw so far is not the only way the verb "to be" is conjugated in the present simple tense. There is another way to conjugate it, which may seem more natural to learners since it looks like a separate word rather than a mere agreement suffix attached to the previous word.

Learning the exact environments where this "full form" of the "to be" verb must be used is not very straightforward (fun fact for nerds: according to a paper I co-authored with a colleague, it is in fact all situations where the copula has to appear as a separate Phonological Word, be it because of focus or as a result of being the first element in the Verb Phrase). As a useful rule of thumb, you could say that the full form is mandatory when there is emphasis on the verb or when it means "to exist".

The full form can be used in other environments too (although it is no longer mandatory). Here are some examples where the verb is used in its full form but has exactly the same meaning as its short form.

It was already mentioned that there are relatively few simple verbs in Persian. Instead, in most sentences, you will see a compound verb, which is a combination of a simple verb and a noun (or adjective, or preposition). Compound verbs are covered in the upcoming lessons.

Among the fewer than 250 simple verbs used in today’s Persian, 65 verbs that are commonly used in both Formal and Colloquial Persian are listed here. This list covers nearly every simple verb you will need by the end of our lessons and for reading any simple Persian text.