Speak Lesson 1 | How to Greet People and Ask How They're Doing

Learn Persian with Chai in conversation lesson one. Hello and welcome to Learn Persian with try and conversation. The podcast for everyone conversational version. My name is Layla, and I'll be your teacher for the course. Try a conversation. We'll teach you conversation. And join us.

Hello and welcome to Learn Persian with Chai and Conversation. The point of this podcast is to provide you with a simple, effective, and easy way to learn conversational Persian. As I've said, my name is Layla and I'm joined by Matt. سلام مات سلام If you've downloaded this program, you're looking for a way to learn to speak and understand Persian. Now, I was born in Iran, so I am a native Persian speaker. Even though I moved to Texas when I was four years old, I grew up speaking the language.

I have noticed, however, that there's such a lack of effective learning materials out there for people trying to learn on their own, and I have been listening to a lot of language learning podcasts over the last few years, and thought we'd create one for people trying to learn conversational Persian. And even though I grew up in Texas as well, I have a vested interest in learning the Persian language since I married an Iranian about a year ago.

I feel like learning a language is the best way to open the door into any culture, and it would be nice to be able to better communicate with my in-laws, especially her grandparents who don't speak any English at all. By listening to this podcast, you all are going to be learning quite a bit of Persian, and I'm going to be learning along with you.

Persian is the predominant language spoken in Iran, but because there's such a large number of Iranians living outside of Iran right now, there are Persian speakers everywhere in the world. Many of you like me may have an Iranian spouse or in laws or Or you may have Iranian friends and would like to be able to communicate with them in Persian on a conversational level. Or perhaps you come from an Iranian or Persian speaking background and would like to get more in touch with your heritage.

And in case you haven't noticed, Iran has been in the news quite frequently, especially in the past few years. This also may have piqued your interest in learning the language. Whatever your reason, we're so glad that you've chosen to learn the Persian language with us. We've created this podcast with the goal of helping you to learn the language in a fun and casual manner, in weekly lessons of about fifteen to twenty minutes each.

The good thing about learning using a podcast is that you can learn anywhere, while in your car or on a run or while sitting comfortably at home in front of your computer. I will be repeating the words and phrases that Layla says, and you should try to repeat them out loud along with me.

You really should repeat the phrases out loud as often as possible. This will be the best way to commit them to your memory and it'll help you to develop a better accent. We will go at a nice and easy pace so that you can get the most out of the lesson. We would like to mention that the podcasts are only one part of Chai and Conversation.

In addition to the podcast, we've created a website, Chai and Conversation.com, with Chai spelled C H A I, on which we'll be posting additional learning materials for you to take advantage of. We'll talk about this more after the lesson. But for now, Matt, are you ready to begin? Great! Let's begin to learn first.

So the first thing you learn when learning any new language is how to say hello. In Persian, the word for hello is Salom. Salon. Now when I say a word out loud and Matt repeats it, you should try to repeat the word along with him. So we're going to try that one more time. Matt, could you repeat along with me? Salom. Salom. Great. So after you learn how to say hello, you generally follow it up with how are you? In Persian, how are you is chitori.

Chetori. I would like to note here that in Persian, as in French, Spanish, and many other languages, there's an informal and formal way of Matt and I are friends, so we would most likely use the informal language. Formal is used when you're speaking to people you don't know very well or Matt with your in-laws or anyone who's older than you.

Because we're trying to learn conversational and casual speaking, for today we're just gonna use informal speech. So again, how are you in Persian in the informal sense is Chetori Great, so let's put those two together. Salom Chetori Salom Chetori.

Now you'll probably want to be able to answer this question if you're asked. The most common form of answering the question in any language is to say, I am well, I am good, or in Persian, Huban. خبان Now Matt has hung out with the Ranians enough that he's heard this sound before, but many of you might not be familiar with it. It's ch And this presents our first big challenge in learning the Persian language. Matt, could you please repeat that sound again?

I had an old Persian professor who learned the language in his twenties and explained that he learned to make the sound by continuously repeating it every morning when he'd wake up. This might not sound like the best way to wake up in the morning to you, but the point is the more you practice it, the more natural you'll be at saying it. And to successfully speak Persian, you must be able to make this sound, because it will come up again and again. So let's try that one more time. Ha ha ha.

Matt, could you maybe help out how you learn to say the sound? Yeah, it's kind of like clearing your throat. Okay, and with this sound again we can say the word for I am well, which is So Matt, I'm going to ask you how you're doing and you can answer that you were well. So Salomat Cheturi. Huban.

So Matt, if I've asked you chitori and you've answered back hubam, what would be a nice way to continue the conversation? Maybe by asking you how you're doing. And how would you do that? Uh I would say chittori. Okay, so let's just try that. Saddam mat chitori. Chitori? Hubam.

And after answering this way, I could follow it politely by saying I'm good thank you. Thank you in Persian is Mercy. Mercy. Now this might sound familiar to you because it is taken from the French word for m thank you, merci, just pronounced slightly differently with the R rolled. Merci. Merci. In fact, you'll see a lot of Persian words that overlap with French in the future. So again, the word for thank you in Persian is

So now with these few words we can have our first conversation in Persian. So I'll begin. Salomat Chatori Hubam Mercy. Chatori? Hubam Mercy. Now we're going to repeat this conversation again, but this time after I ask the question, Matt will give you some time so that you can provide an answer for yourself before he gives his answer. Ready? Salom Matt Cheturi. C'est bon, merci. Comment ça? C'est bon, merci. Great, so so far we have sadom chitori

Chuba. And Merci. Four new words in your Persian vocabulary.

So now let's continue with a different answer to the question Chituri. Instead of saying I'm good, let's say I'm very good. To say I'm very good in Persian you say Khali Hubam Keli Hubam. You may have noticed that we encountered the h sound again. If you haven't gotten the hang of this sound yet, don't worry, it will come with practice. So again, I'm very good is Keli Huban. So Matt, I'm going to ask you how you're doing and you can answer that you're very good.

However, you won't always be doing good or very good. If you're having a rough day, you might want to answer I'm not good, which in Persian is Khub Nistam Hub Nistam Sob again is the word for good and Nistam means I am not. So what if you're not doing good, but things aren't going so badly either? Another common way to answer the question how are you would be to say that you're not bad. In Persian this would be So you may have noticed another familiar word in there bad.

Bad has the same meaning in Persian as it does in English. Just make sure to note the subtle, subtle difference in the accent. In Persian, this word is bad, and in English it's Bad. So it's a bit less drawn out in Persian. Let's try saying it the Persian way. Bad. Bad. That's right. Bad. Bad. So again, I'll ask you how you are and answer that you're not bad. Salamat Chatori Bad Nistam Ok, let's run through all these answers quickly. I'm good is Hubam. I'm very good is... I am not good is...

Hub Nistam I'm not bad is Bad Nistam Bad Nistam Very good So in Persian very good is Keli Hub. Okay, so far I've been asking Matt Chitoti and he's been answering with חובה! חיילי חובה!

Hub Nistam Bad Nistam And when he wants to ask me how I'm doing in return, he says Chatori Let's practice this in conversation. Salomat Chetori Huban Merci Chetori Huba Merci Great now let's try this again and this time answer that you're not bad. سلام من چطوری؟ بد نیستم چطوری؟ من؟ خوبم مرسی So I added a word in there man. Man in Persian means me. So I added that in there to emphasize that me, I'm doing good. So manhuba means I I'm doing good.

You can use that to emphasize the other phrases we learned as well, such as me I'm not bad, which would be man badnistam. Man badnisam. Or even I'm not good Man Hubnistam Man Hubnistam. So again this is to emphasize like you maybe you're not doing well, but me, I'm doing great. So let's repeat all the words we've learned so far one more time. Salam Salom Chattori! Chattori! خوبام خوبام خيلي خوبام مرسي Khub Nishtam Khub Nishtam

Bad Nistam. Now let's learn one last answer for the question, how are you? And we'll wrap up this lesson. Let's say you're doing really, really well and you want to say I'm great. In Persian this would be Ali So this is the Persian word for great. So when you're asked how are you and you want to answer that you are great, you just simply say great. Ali. So I'm going to ask you how you're doing one last time and you're going to answer that you're doing great.

So salamat chitori Ali Great, so Matt is doing very well after learning all these new Persian words. Let's run through our answers one last time. I'm good Hubam I'm very good. Keli Hubam I'm not good Hubnistam I'm not bad. Bad Nistan. I'm great. Ollie. Let's repeat it all again one last time so we can definitely get a grasp on the vocabulary. Again, I'm going to say the words and Matt is going to repeat them and you should repeat them along with Matt.

چه توری چه توری خوبام خيلي خوبام خوب نیستم خوب نیستم باد نیستم آلی آلی We also learned Mann Mercy Mercy And that wraps up our vocabulary for this lesson. It may not seem like we learned that many new words, but that's how we want to do it for try-in conversation. To learn a few words each time so that you'll be able to use them in practical conversation at a pace that is easy to manage.

Thank you so much for listening to us, and we look forward to you joining us next time on Chai and Conversation.