In English we have prepositions, the words that come before a noun and show its relationship to the other words in a sentence such as in, on, for. In Pashto the prepositions are not used alone. These words that do the job of a preposition in Pashto are called postpositions. As the name suggests, post positions are the words that come after a noun in Pashto and show its relationship to the other words in the sentence.

In English if we want to say “I am going to Kabul” we notice that the preposition “to” occurs before the noun “Kabul” in the sentence. on the contrary, if we say the same sentence in Pashto “za Kabul ta zam” we can see that the postposition “ta” occurs after the noun Kabul. in order to get used to post positions, it sometimes helps to write the literal meaning of a couple of Pashto sentence with post position and memorize them. For example the literal meaning of the sentence above will be “ I Kabul to go” this way you will remember the structure easier.  The following are examples of post positions in Pashto.

sara (سره)  = with  za ahmad sara zam. (زه احمد سره ځم .)  I am going with Ahmad.

Lapaara (لپاره)  = for   da sta lapaara day. (دا ستا لپاره دی.)  This is for you.

Ta nagde (ته نږدې) = near khaar ta nagde osaigam.     (ښار ته نږدې اوسیږم.) I live near the city.

Khowata (خواته)  = towards zamaong khowata raaza. (زمونږ خواته راځه.)  Come towards us.

Ghonday (غوندې) = like    hagha taa ghonday day. (هغه تا غوندې دی.)  He is like you.