Impersonal Physical States
In Persian, expressing physical states like feeling hot, cold, or sleepy uses an impersonal structure. Instead of a direct "I am cold," you say something closer to "My coldness is."
To build this, attach a pronominal enclitic (showing who is feeling the state) to the adjective or noun, and follow it with a 3rd-person singular verb.
Because the verb is impersonal, it does not change based on who is feeling it. Only the enclitic changes:
| Person | Enclitic | Structure (Cold) |
|---|
| I | ـَم | سردم است |
| You (sg.) | ـَت | سردت است |
| He/She/It | ـَش | سردش است |
| We | ـِمان | سردمان است |
| You (pl.) | ـِتان | سردتان است |
| They | ـِشان | سردشان است |
Changing Tenses
If you want to say you were cold or got cold, the enclitic remains exactly the same. Only the final 3rd-person verb changes (e.g., to بود or شد).
Sleep, Pain, and Symptoms
For involuntary actions and medical symptoms, Persian pairs the enclitic noun with specific verbs like آمدن (to come) or گرفتن (to catch/take). The symptom is the grammatical subject, and you are just the receiver.
For خواب (sleep), use میآید: "My sleep comes" (I am sleepy).
For درد (pain), use آمد: "My pain came" (It hurt me).
Sudden physical reactions like لرز (chills) or سرفه (cough) use گرفتن:
Remembering and Forgetting
Mental states use the exact same logic. The word یاد means memory.
To say "I forgot," you literally say "My memory went" (یادم رفت). To say "I remembered," you say "My memory came" (یادم آمد).
Just like physical states, you can change the enclitic to talk about other people's memories:
