This week, we learned how to conjugate verbs in the present tense. The present tense is very irregular in Farsi -- the stem of the verbs changes, unlike in the past tense. To conjugate a verb in the present tense, the same system of removing the "-an" from the infinitive and putting a suffix depending on the subject is used. However, the stem that the suffix is attached to is not the same as the infinitive. For the verb "raftan," the stem changes to "mirav-". (All verbs in the present tense have the suffix -mi attached). For the verb "sohbat kardan," the stem changes to "mikon-". For the verb "didan," the stem changes to "mibin-". This makes the present tense very difficult, as all these stems must be memorized, and thus we spent a lot of time on it.
We also learned the future tense at the same time. The future tense is the same as the present tense, but words like "tomorrow" (farda) or "future" (ayndah) may be used to indicate the speaker is talking about the future.
I recorded a third Voki artifact, introducing my family. My dialogue translates as, "I'm going to talk about my family. My father's name is Masoud. My mother's name is Jaleh. My father is 57 years old and my mother is 56 years old. My father is an engineer and my mother is a homemaker. They live in New Jersey. They are from Iran. My father is from the city of Shiraz and my mother is from the city of Abadan. I have two aunts (mother's sisters). Their names are Jila and Mozhdeh. I have one uncle (mother's brother). His name is Amir. I have two aunts (father's sisters). Their names are Shahlah and Soraya. I have one uncle (father's brother). His name is Saeid. They are all from Iran, but they live in Iran, Sweden, America, and England."
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