Journal Entry 8
The goal for this week is imperatives and subjunctives. They share the same basic form (add be to the present stem of a verb then decline). This intuitively works like English in my mind. I have noticed that people rarely, if ever, use a direct imperative e.g. “eat the sandwich!” but rather use a jussive subjunctive, e.g. “you should eat the sandwich!” This seems to match up well with how I understand the imperative form in Persian, which is very close to the subjunctive. I am wondering if this emerged because of the excessive politeness and taarof characterizing parts of Persian culture. Regardless of my meditation on the subjunctive and imperative, my method for learning them is the same as my usual method: work with Mahshad, review outside of class, and do worksheets.
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