پسر در حیاط با یک سگ بازی می‌کند.

From Lesson 31:Compound verbs·Farsi

Questions & Answers about پسر در حیاط با یک سگ بازی می‌کند.

How does the compound verb بازی می‌کند work in this sentence?
This is a compound verb, which is very common in Farsi! It is made of two parts: the noun بازی (game or play) and the verb می‌کند (he/she does). Literally, it translates to "he does play". In the present indicative, only the second part (کردن, to do) gets conjugated. It takes the present continuous prefix می and the third-person singular ending د.
Why is the verb placed at the very end of the sentence?
Farsi is a Subject-Object-Verb (SOV) language, meaning the action almost always goes at the very end. While English says "The boy plays with a dog", Farsi structures it as "The boy ... play-does" (پسر ... بازی می‌کند).
I see the word for boy (پسر), but where is the word for "the"?
Farsi does not have a direct equivalent for the definite article "the". If a noun does not have an indefinite marker like یک (a/one), it is usually understood from the context to be definite. So, پسر simply translates to "the boy" here.
Can I switch the order of "in the yard" (در حیاط) and "with a dog" (با یک سگ)?
Yes, you can! Both are prepositional phrases, and Farsi is quite flexible with their order in the middle of a sentence. Saying پسر با یک سگ در حیاط بازی می‌کند is also perfectly natural and means exactly the same thing.

Learn پسر در حیاط با یک سگ بازی می‌کند and more in Farsi

All course content and exercises are completely free — no paywalls, no trial periods, no signup needed.

  • Practice with interactive exercises
  • Track your progress with spaced repetition
  • Learn at your own pace — completely free