Questions & Answers about نه، آن خودکار نیست.
This lesson is about Yes/No questions. Why isn't there a question word like آیا (âyâ) here?
Because this sentence is a statement, not a question! It is a common way to answer a Yes/No question. In Farsi, you start a negative reply with نه (na) meaning "No", just like in English.
I remember the word for "is" is است (ast). Why is the word for "is not" نیست (nist)?
To make the verb است (ast) negative, Farsi combines the negative prefix نـ (na-) with است (ast). These smoothly merged together into a single word, نیست (nist), which means "is not."
Does خودکار (khodkâr) just mean "pen", or is there a trick to remembering it?
It literally translates to "self-working" (خود means "self" and کار means "work"). When ballpoint pens were introduced, they were called "automatic pens", and now خودکار (khodkâr) is the standard word for an everyday pen.
Why does نیست (nist) come at the very end of the sentence?
In Farsi, the verb almost always goes at the very end of the sentence. While English says "That is not a pen," the Farsi structure is "That a pen is not" (آن خودکار نیست).
The word نه (na) ends with the letter "h" (ه). Why don't we pronounce the "h" sound?
When the Farsi letter (heh) is at the very end of a word, it often acts as a vowel rather than a consonant. Here, it just makes the short "a" sound in (na).