Questions & Answers about من امروز بیمار نیستم اما سالم هستم.
I see نیستم (nistam) here for "I am not". How does it relate to the affirmative "I am"?
In Farsi, the present tense of the verb "to be" is irregular. The affirmative "I am" is هستم (hastam), which you can see at the end of the sentence. To make it negative ("I am not"), we use a completely different word: نیستم (nistam). Notice that we don't just add a negative prefix to the affirmative verb like we do with most other Farsi verbs!
Since both verbs end in -am, could I drop the من (man) at the start of the sentence?
Yes! In Farsi, the verb endings tell you who is doing the action. The -am at the end of نیستم (nistam) and هستم (hastam) already means "I". Saying امروز بیمار نیستم (emruz bimar nistam...) without the من (man) is perfectly natural and very common in conversational Farsi.
Why are the verbs نیستم (nistam) and هستم (hastam) placed where they are?
Farsi sentences usually put the verb at the very end. This sentence has two separate clauses connected by اما (ama, meaning "but"). In each part, the verb goes at its respective end: "today sick I am not" and "healthy I am".
I previously learned مریض (mariz) for "sick." Can I use that instead of بیمار (bimar)?
Absolutely. Both بیمار (bimar) and مریض (mariz) mean "sick" and are completely interchangeable here. مریض is very common in everyday spoken Farsi, while is slightly more formal but still widely used and used all the time.