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Questions & Answers about او استاد است.
The English translation says 'She', but how do I know it is a woman from the word او?
Farsi pronouns do not have gender. The word او can mean 'he', 'she', or 'it' depending on the context. We used 'She' for this translation, but it could just as easily mean 'He is a professor' if we were talking about a man.
I do not see a word for 'a' in the Farsi sentence. Why is it translated as 'a professor'?
In Farsi, you do not usually need a word for 'a' or 'an' when simply stating someone's profession or identity. The sentence literally translates to 'She professor is', but in English we naturally add the 'a' to make it grammatically correct.
Is است a suffix that attaches to the word before it, like the endings for 'I am' and 'you are'?
No, while the 'to be' endings for 'I' and 'you' usually attach directly to the previous word as suffixes, the third-person singular form است (meaning 'is') is written as an independent word. It pairs perfectly with the singular pronoun او.
Why is the word است at the very end of the sentence?
Farsi sentences generally follow a Subject-Object-Verb word order, meaning the verb almost always goes at the very end. Here, the subject او comes first, the profession استاد is in the middle, and the verb است finishes the sentence.