Persian pronouns and possessive endings form the basic foundation of every conversation.

Learning them early on makes building sentences much easier.

In this guide, I’ll show you exactly how to use subject pronouns and attach possessive suffixes to words.

Understanding these patterns will quickly improve your ability to communicate in Persian.

Persian subject pronouns

Subject pronouns replace the name of the person or thing doing the action in a sentence.

In English, these are words like “I”, “you”, “he”, and “we”.

Persian doesn’t have gendered pronouns.

This means you’ll use the exact same word for “he” and “she”.

Here’s a simple table showing the Persian subject pronouns.

Persian verbs always have an ending that tells you who is doing the action.

Because of this, native speakers often drop the subject pronoun entirely.

Formal and informal usage

Spoken Persian differs slightly from written Persian.

When speaking to older people or strangers, it’s polite to use the formal pronoun.

Instead of using the informal “you” (to), you should use the plural “you” (shomaa).

You can also use a formal version of “they” when talking about a respected person.

The word ishaan (ایشان) is often used instead of oo (او) to respectfully refer to one person.

In everyday Iranian spoken Persian, pronunciation changes slightly.

The word for “they”, aanhaa (آنها), is almost always pronounced as oonaa (اونا) in conversation.

The word for “it”, aan (آن), is pronounced as oon (اون).

Persian possessive endings

In English, we use separate words like “my”, “your”, or “our” to show ownership.

Persian occasionally uses separate words, but it’s much more common to use suffixes.

A suffix is simply a short ending attached to the end of a noun.

Here are the standard Persian possessive endings.

Notice how the plural endings change their sound in spoken Tehrani Persian.

The “aan” sound shifts to an “oon” sound.

Let’s look at how to attach these endings to a regular word like ketaab (book).

Attaching endings to words with vowels

Attaching a possessive ending is easy when the word ends in a consonant.

It requires a tiny adjustment if the word ends in a vowel.

If a noun ends in the vowel sound “a”, “o”, or “u”, you must add a “y” sound before the ending.

Take the word moo (hair) as an example.

To say “my hair”, you add a “y” to bridge the gap, making it moo-y-am (مویم).

If a noun ends in the silent “eh” (ـه), you drop the silent letter and add an “am” sound directly in spoken Persian.

The word for “house” is khaaneh (خانه) in written Persian, or khooneh (خونه) in spoken Persian.

Practicing these small attachments will make your Persian sound incredibly natural.