This is a lesson about past perfect in Farsi. First we are going to talk
about how to form a past perfect verb in Farsi. So first you need to form the
past participle of the verb you want to change to past perfect. For example, we
have the verb "رفتن". So the past the past participle of "رفتن" is "رفته".
Then you need to conjugate the past participle with past tense of the verb
"to be," which in the past tense is "بودن". So you conjugate "رفته بودم". If
I write, because "رفته" doesn't change at all, the first part, so,
رفته بودم، I had gone
رفته بودی، you had gone
رفته بود، he or she had gone
رفته بودیم، we had gone
رفته بودید، you had gone, plural
And "رفته بودند", they had gone, third person plural.
So as you can see, it's
regular and it's very easy to form. Let's look at another example:
نوشتن, to write
So in order to form a past perfect, we just need to have the past participle of the verb "نوشتن", which is "نوشته",
and then conjugate it with the past tense of the verb to be:
نوشته بودم، نوشته بودی، نوشته بود.
I had written, you had written, he or she had written.
نوشته بودیم, we had written
نوشته بودید, you had written (plural).
And "نوشته بودند", they had written, third-person, plural.
نوشته بودم، نوشته بودی، نوشته بود. نوشته بودیم، نوشته بودید، نوشته بودیم.
Another example. For
example, "گفتن" means to say. First past participle "گفته", then conjugate it with
the verb to be, the past tense.
گفته بودم، گفته بودی، گفته بود. گفته بودیم، گفته بودید، گفته بودند.
I had said, you had said, she or he had said.
Then we had said, you had said, and they had said. Now let's talk about the usage
of the past perfect. Leave this example here, "نوشته بودم". So past perfect
is about an action; if we say that this is the present time, it's about two actions.
In fact, that they have happened in the past but one preceded the other one. For
example, there are two actions, one has happened here, the other one here.
The past perfect one is the one hat has happened in the further past. So for
example "نوشته بودم" has happened here. And let's look at some examples:
وقتی به خانه رسیدم، آنها رفته بودند.
When I arrived at home, when I
arrived home, they had gone. So first, I arrived at home, here
in the past. I arrived, "رسیدم", but they here had gone. Their action was before my
action. So, I arrived but they had gone. The usage of past perfect in Farsi and
in English is pretty much the same. There are some slight differences ,but
you can say that they are pretty much the same. So let's look at another
example:
پیش از شما، آن جا رسیده بودم.
So you say that before you, I had arrived there. So it means that
before you arrived here in the past, I had arrived in the
further past. So it's about two actions, and both happened in the past, but one
is before another one. So before you arrived. You arrived in the past, but I
had arrived before you. So this is the the usage of past perfect in Farsi. That
was a lesson on how to form past perfect and the main usage of past
perfect in Farsi.