In this blog post, we will teach you the past tense of the verb “to be” in Dari, and its different conjugated variation. In Dari, there are two infinitives for the “to be” verbs, the imaginary infinitive هستن  hastan which is used for the present  tense , and the real infinitive بودن  boodan which used for past tense.  It is only the verb “to be” in Dari that has two infinitives.

The past tense of the verb “to be” is derived from the infinitive بودن  boodan by simply dropping the last letter  ن  “an” of the infinitive and adding the personal endings of the verbs. The personal endings of the verb are suffixes that are added to the stem of a verb in order to show who the subject of the verb is. For example, the personal ending for “I” is  م “am” therefore in the sentence من در کابل بودم   man dar Kabul boodam, the personal ending which is highlighted is am.

The following are the past tense of the “to be” verbs in Dari.

Dari                                        transliteration                   Meaning

من بودم                                      man boodam                     I was

تو بودی                                      tu boodee                          you were (singular)

او بود                                         oo bood                             he/she/it was

ما بودیم                                      maa boodaim                     we were

شما بودید                                    shumaa boodeed               you were (plural)

آنها بودند                                    anhaa boodand                  they were

calendar جنتری

If you are living in the west, it is most likely you are thinking about the New Year’s resolution when the New Year approaches. In Afghanistan, it is quite a different story; there are no resolutions, celebrations, or even holidays when it is January 1^st, and that is because they use a different calendar. In Afghan calendar, called Hejri Shamsi, it is the year 1391. The first month of the Hijre Shamsi year is Hamal. The first of Hamal is a holiday and is celebrated all over Afghanistan. This holiday is called Now-ruz  (نوروز) which literally means “The New Day”. The Afghan New Year usually coincides with the 21^st of March in the Christian calendar.

In Afghanistan the New Year’s first day, Now-ruz, is also the first day of spring; therefore, Afghans considers Nowruz a symbol of hope, and new and fresh life. The wild tulips and other plants start to bloom at this time of the year. Every year, there is a traditional celebration called the Red Flower Festival “Maila e Gule Surkh”

In Afghanistan, another custom on Nowruze is preparing Haft-maiwa which literally means, “seven fruits”. It is a mixture of seven kinds of dried fruits soaked in water for one, or a couple of nights and then severed on the New year’s day. The fruit soaked usually include walnuts Char-Maghz چهار مغز , almonds ‌Badaam بادام  , dates Khurma خرما   raisins Keshmesh کشمش  pistachio Pista پسته  ,and prune Keshta کشته . After being mixed and soaked together for a night or two the fruits are served along with their flavorful syrup on the new year’s day. If you happen to visit an Afghan family on the New Year’s Day, you will get to try this tasty treat.

Families and groups of friends go on picnics to places with lots of flowers and green fields. In some cities, there are specific places that people go to for a picnic. In these picnic places, you would see groups of young men with huge stereos speakers playing music and dancing to the music, or sometimes you will even see live music instruments played at the site.

The famous food for Nowroz is fish Mahi ماهی and Jelabi (a kind of dessert) جلبی. According to the Afghan customs, the man or the family of the man who is engaged has to visit the family of the fiancée and buy them fish and Jelabi and gifts for the fiancée.

watch= Sa'at ساعت

One of the things that we do a lot is that we talk about the time. Probably the first thing we do when we wake up in the morning is to check what time it is. So, when learning a new language asking about time and talking about time is what most of us would want to learn soon. Today, we will teach you how to ask and answer about time in Dari.

Time related vocabulary:

دقیقه  daqeeq/daqa means “minute”, it is usually pronounced as daqa.

بجه   baja : O’clock

کم    kam  : less

و     wa/o means “and”, it is usually pronounced as “o” when not in the beginning of a sentence or phrase.

ثانیه  sania : second

نیم  neem : half

یک   yak  : one

پنج  Panj  : five

ده  da       : ten

To ask what time it is, we use the   sentence: چند بجه است؟    Chand baja ast “what time is it?”

And here are some answers:

یک بجه است. Yak baja ast.   It is one o’clock.

as you can see, in order to say a different time, all you need to do is to change the number. For example, to say “It is five o’clock.” You need to replace the word yak “one” with the word Panj “five” in the example above.

پنج بجه است.  Panj baja ast. It is five o’clock.

پنج و ده دقیقه است.   Panj o da daqeeqa ast. It is ten past five. The Dari version literally translates as “ It is five and ten minutes.” As you can notice, in the sentence above we only use the word daqeeqa “minute” and this is because the last number in the sentence refers to minutes.

ده کم یک بجه است.   Da kam yak baja ast.   It is ten minutes to one. The Dari version laterally means “ It is ten less one o’clock.”

یک و نیم بجه است.    Yak o neem baja ast. It is haf past one.

We have taught you how to say the numbers in Dari in our previous blog post. By knowing the numbers, you will be able to say any time.  Here are some examples you can practice and leave your answers in the comment area.

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