From the two stems given in dictionaries (e.g. gir, gereft 'take, took', nevis, nevešt 'write, wrote', deh, dād 'give, gave' etc.)
The greatest variety is shown in verb forms referring to past events.
'to make open') and yād gereftan 'to learn', are very frequently used in modern Persian.
(Compare, eg, "gotcha" in English which is an abbreviated form of "have you got your...") In Persian the verb usually comes at the end of the clause, although there are sometimes exceptions (for example in colloquial Persian it is common to hear phrases such as raftam Tehrān 'I went to Tehran' where the destination follows the verb).
Both stems can be used to make verbal nouns such as گفتگو goftogu (or goftegu) 'dialogue', رفت وآمد raft o āmad 'going and coming', خوشنویس xošnevis 'calligrapher'.
[9] The perfect forms have the following personal endings: Examples of various constructions are given below using the verb کردن kardan 'to do'.
It is used in colloquial Persian only: The two halves of the verb are usually separated by other words, e.g. u dārad qazā mixorad 'he is eating at the moment'.
For example, colloquially it can be used in 'if' and 'when' clauses referring to future time:[20] Another idiom is āmadam!
)'[21] The past simple construction in Persian is also often used where English might use the perfect to refer to events which have just occurred: The imperfect is formed by prefixing می mi- to the simple past:[23] The negative has ne-: man nemikardam 'I was not doing'.
The imperfect of بودن budan 'to be' and داشتن dāštan 'to have' do not use the prefix می mi-,[23] except sometimes when the meaning is 'would be' or 'would have': The negative of these is made with na-: nabudam 'I was not'.
The pluperfect is a compound construction formed from the perfect participle and the simple past of the verb بودن (to be).
As well as its ordinary use as a pluperfect, like the imperfect it can also be used in a conditional sense: The negative is formed with na-: man nakarde budam 'I hadn't done'.
[27] Sometimes a continuous version of the pluperfect is found (man mikarde budam) but this is rare and not generally used; some Persian grammarians consider it ungrammatical.
These constructions are not only used in the ordinary perfect sense ('he has done X', 'he has sometimes done X') but also in colloquial Persian in an inferential or reported sense ('it appears that he did X'),[30] Most other Iranian dialects of the region have a similar use of the perfect construction and it is likely that this is due to areal contact with Turkish, which is also spoken in Iran.
However, it can be used in sentences such as the following referring to events which have been happening repeatedly or continuously for a long time:[41] Another common use which differs from English is to express a situation that no longer exists, that is, it is the equivalent of 'I used to do': It can also be used in an inferential sense,[45] as in: A progressive version of the perfect continuous is also found in colloquial Persian, but it seems only in the 3rd person:[48] It is typically used in an inferential sense (that is, with the idea 'it would seem that...'), for example, in sentences in which the speaker is reporting something he has been told, but did not personally witness, such as the following: A perfect version of the pluperfect (also known as the 'double perfect')[50] can be made by changing budam in the pluperfect to bude am.
This is occasionally used in a non-inferential sense, but much more frequently it is inferential: A typical example of its use is the following: The future construction is formed by adding a shortened version of the infinitive, identical with the infinitive stem, to the simple present form of the verb خواستن xāstan 'to want', but without the prefix mi-.
It is used whenever it is uncertain whether an event will take place, or whether a situation is true, e.g.[60] It is used for indefinite relative clauses such as the following:[61] The subjunctive is also used after phrases such as qabl az inke 'before...' (of future or past time), tā 'until...' (of future time only), tā 'so that':[62] It is also used instead of an infinitive after verbs such as 'I want', 'I can', 'I must', 'it is possible that', and in indirect commands:[63] The perfect subjunctive is formed by adding bāšam to the perfect participle.
One of the main uses is in sentences referring to an event or state in the past about which there is an element of doubt:[64] It is also used for wishes:[66] The negative is made with na-: nakarde bāšam 'that I have not done'.
The imperative (command) is similar to the subjunctive, except that the 2nd person singular has no ending: The negative lacks the prefix be-: nanevis!
It is formed by adding -ād to the present stem: Although in general, this inflection has been abandoned, yet remnants of its usage can be observed in colloquial expressions such as harče bādā bād (هرچه بادا باد) 'come what may' and dast marizād (دست مريزاد) lit.
Transitive verbs in Persian can be made passive by adding different tenses of the verb šodan 'to become' to the perfect participle, e.g.[67] nāme nevešte (na)šode ast 'the letter has (not) been written' nāme nevešte xāhad šod 'the letter will be written' In the subjunctive, the prefix be- is usually omitted:[67] nāme bāyad nevešte šavad 'the letter must be written' In compound verbs, the light verb kardan is simply replaced with šodan.
For example, from čāp kardan 'to print' is made: āgahi diruz čāp šod 'the letter was printed yesterday'[67] Like English verbs, Persian verbs are either transitive (requiring an object) or intransitive.
In colloquial Persian, many of the most commonly used verbs are pronounced in an abbreviated form; and ān and ām may become un and um.