Questions & Answers about ما از این تکنولوژی در فضا استفاده کردهایم.
Since our current lesson is about the future tense, I was expecting to see something like خواهیم (khâhim). What tense is استفاده کردهایم?
This sentence is actually a review of the Present Perfect tense ("we have used"). It is formed using the past participle کرده (karde) attached to the personal ending ایم (-im) for "we". If you wanted to change this sentence to the future tense you're learning now ("we will use"), the verb would become استفاده خواهیم کرد (estefâde khâhim kard).
Why is there an از (az) before این تکنولوژی (in teknolozi)? In English we just say "use this technology".
In Farsi, the compound verb استفاده کردن (estefâde kardan), meaning "to use", always takes the preposition از (az). Literally, Farsi speakers say they get use from something. You will almost always see از paired with this verb when stating what is being used.
The word تکنولوژی is obviously a loanword. Is it pronounced just like the English word "technology"?
Not quite! Like many scientific and technical words in Farsi, it was borrowed from French (technologie). Therefore, it is pronounced teknolozi with a "zh" sound (like the "s" in the English word "measure" or "vision"), rather than the "j" sound we use in English.
How does the word order work here with the location در فضا (dar fazâ)?
Farsi generally places the verb at the very end of the sentence. Here, the subject ما (mâ - we) comes first, followed by the object phrase (az in teknolozi), then the location (dar fazâ - in space) is inserted, and finally the full compound verb (estefâde karde-im) closes the sentence.