Questions & Answers about مردان پیر امروز اینجا نیستند.
How is the word for "men" made plural in this sentence?
The singular word for man is مرد (mard). Because men are living beings (animate), Farsi uses the animate plural suffix ـان (-ân). Adding this to the end gives us مردان (mardân) for "men".
How does the adjective "old" connect to "men" if there is no connecting word written?
Farsi connects nouns to their adjectives using a short "e" sound called the ezâfe. You pronounce it as mardân-e pir. This connecting "e" sound is almost never written in the Persian script, which is why it looks like مردان and پیر are just sitting next to each other.
Why does the verb نیستند have a ـند at the end?
The verb must match the subject. Since the subject is "the old men" (they), we have to use the "they" form of the verb. The base negative for "is not" is نیست (nist). Adding the plural ending ـند (-and) gives us نیستند (nistand), meaning "they are not".
Why do the words for "today" and "here" come before the verb?
In Farsi, the verb is almost always the very last word in the sentence. Details about time and place, like امروز (today) and اینجا (here), naturally go in the middle of the sentence, after the subject and before the verb.