Now we start the lesson on subjective pronouns in Farsi. The subjective
pronouns in Farsi, they are in two groups, singular and plural, and they are
six so let's look at them:
من: I
تو: you singular
او: he or she
There is no gender in Farsi, as you see.
And here we can say آن
for other than human beings, for animals, or you know, plants. And then the plural
group starts with
ما: we
شما: you plural
آن ها: they
So there are some points
important to know about personal pronouns in Farsi. First: so when for
example we have a sentence like
من دیدم.
I saw. As you know, we conjugate the verb in Farsi. So in fact this subject
always is in the verb. So من is kind of optional, even though in Farsi
most of the time, it's common to use both: من دیدم.
But if you just say دیدم,
it's fine. It means I saw.
من دیدم: I saw
دیدم: I saw
Another point is
that as you see, [despite] English, in Farsi we have a "you singular" and "you plural." So:
So تو is you, singular.
And شما is you, plural.
But we use شما a lot to refer
...to just one person, and it's a sign
of respect. So it's used a lot when you know you address someone with شما
while he is or she is just one person, but it's the sign of respect.
Another thing about personal subjective pronouns is the pronoun ما. If you have a
Persian friend, you will see that he uses a lot of ما pronoun, more than من. And
the reason is that in Farsi, using ما instead of من is the sign of being humble,
humbleness. So many times in Farsi, people refer to themselves, instead of using من,
they use ما.
Instead of saying من دیدم,
The say, ما دیدم.
It's the sign of being
humble. And the last point is related to the third-person plural.
We have آن ها.
But there is another one: ایشان
It can be used instead of آن ها.
But it is exclusively
used to refer to a third person singular. This is a sign of being
polite. For example, I want to refer to someone who is not here. Instead of saying
that who is not here, I say ایشان.
It's the kind of referring to that person as
a plural. It's a sign of being polite and respectful. So the first point
is that this subject is repeated in the verb. Second, there is difference between
you plural and you singular. And you plural is used as a sign of
respect, and in Farsi it's used a lot as a sign of being formal and respectful.
The other one is using ما to refer to من as a sign of being humble.
And the last one is the ایشان that is referring to a plural third person, but
it is mostly, and you can say exclusively, it's used to refer to او, the third
person singular, as a sign of being polite and respectful.