Questions & Answers about بانک بزرگ امروز باز است.
I see the words for bank and big, but how do they connect?
They are connected by the Ezafe particle! In Farsi, when an adjective describes a noun, it comes after the noun. You link them by adding an 'e' sound to the end of the first word. So, بانک (bank) and بزرگ (bozorg) become بانکِ بزرگ (bānk-e bozorg). Notice that this 'e' sound is spoken but usually not written in the Persian alphabet!
Where is the word for 'the' in this sentence?
Farsi does not have a specific word for 'the'. The word بانک can mean either 'a bank' or 'the bank' depending on the context. Because there are no extra endings added to it here, we understand it as 'the big bank' from the general context of the statement.
Why does the sentence end with است (is)?
As a quick refresher, Farsi is a verb-final language. This means the action word or the 'to be' verb almost always goes at the very end of the sentence. Here, است (ast) acts as the anchor at the end, while in English we put 'is' in the middle of the sentence.
Is there a trick to remembering the word for today, امروز?
Yes! You can think of امروز (emruz) as a combination word. The second half is روز (ruz), which means 'day'. The first part comes from an old word for 'this'. So it literally translates to 'this day', which makes it perfectly match the meaning of today!