Persian verb conjugation is much simpler than you might expect.

Unlike many European languages, Persian has no gender forms for verbs.

There are also very few irregular verbs to memorize.

Once you learn the basic endings, you can confidently speak about the past, present, and future.

In this guide, I’ll break down the exact patterns you need to know.

How Persian verbs work

Every Persian verb has two stems.

You have a past stem and a present stem.

The past stem is extremely easy to find.

You simply remove the ending tan (تن) or dan (دن) from the dictionary form of the verb.

The present stem is slightly irregular and must be memorized for each verb separately.

You build tenses by adding specific prefixes and personal endings to these stems.

Personal pronouns in Persian

Before conjugating verbs, you need to know the subject pronouns.

Persian uses six main personal pronouns.

The ending of the verb will always match the pronoun you’re using.

Present tense conjugation

The simple present tense is used for both general habits and actions happening right now.

To form the present tense, you add the prefix mi- (می) to the present stem.

Then, you attach the personal ending to the end of the stem.

Let’s use the verb “to eat”, which is khordan (خوردن).

The present stem for this verb is khor (خور).

Here are a few examples of the present tense in action.

Past tense conjugation

The simple past tense is incredibly straightforward.

You take the infinitive and drop the final n (ن) to get the past stem.

For the verb khordan, the past stem is simply khord (خورد).

You then add the exact same personal endings we used in the present tense.

The only exception is the “he/she/it” form, which takes no ending at all in the past tense.

Here’s how you’d use these past tense verbs in a sentence.

Future tense conjugation

The future tense is rarely used in everyday conversation, but you’ll see it often in writing and news broadcasts.

To form the future tense, you use a helper verb.

You must conjugate the verb khastan (خواستن), which means “to want”.

You place this conjugated helper verb before the shortened infinitive (the past stem) of your main verb.

The main verb doesn’t take any endings in the future tense.

Here’s an example of the formal future tense in Persian.

Spoken vs. written variations

Persian is spoken slightly differently than it’s written.

Iranians tend to shorten verb endings and change certain vowels in everyday conversations.

For example, the formal “they” ending -and (ـاند) usually becomes just -an (ـن) in spoken Tehrani Persian.

The verb mikhorand (they eat) becomes mikhoran when chatting with friends.

The future tense is also almost completely ignored in spoken Persian.

Instead of using the helper verb khastan, native speakers simply use the present tense with a future time word.

It’s important to note that these shortcuts are mostly used in Iran.

In Afghanistan (Dari) and Tajikistan (Tajiki), speakers generally pronounce verbs much closer to their formal written forms.