Breakdown of دکتر، سردم است و لرزم گرفت.
دکتر
doctor
است
is
و
and
سردsard
cold
گرفتنgereftan
to take / to get
لرزlarz
chills / shiver
Questions & Answers about دکتر، سردم است و لرزم گرفت.
Why do we say sard-am ast instead of using man (I) and hastam (I am)?
In Farsi, physical states like being cold, hot, or hungry are often expressed impersonally. Instead of saying 'I am cold', Farsi literally says 'My cold is'. Here, sard (cold) takes the 'my' ending (-am) followed by the third-person 'is' (ast).
How exactly does larz-am gereft translate to 'I got chills'?
This is another impersonal construction. larz means a chill or shiver. We add the 'my' ending (-am) and use the third-person singular past tense of the verb 'to catch' or 'to take' (gereft). Literally, it translates to 'my chill caught', which is the natural way to say 'I got chills' or 'I started shivering' in Farsi.
Why does the first part of the sentence use a present tense verb (ast) while the second part uses a past tense verb (gereft)?
sard-am ast describes an ongoing state: you are currently cold right now. gereft is used in the past tense because getting chills is viewed as a sudden physical reaction that just happened to you. Even though they translate to different English tenses, both Farsi verbs are in the third-person singular because the physical state is the grammatical subject, not you.
How is sard-am ast usually pronounced in everyday spoken Farsi?
In casual speech, native speakers rarely pronounce every syllable separately. The phrase sard-am ast is almost always blended together and pronounced as sardame.
Learn دکتر، سردم است و لرزم گرفت 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