Word
اگر در گلخانه بسته مانده بود، آفتها به داخل نیامده بودند.
Meaning
If the door of the greenhouse had remained closed, the pests would not have come inside.
Part of speech
sentence
Pronunciation
Course
Breakdown of اگر در گلخانه بسته مانده بود، آفتها به داخل نیامده بودند.
در
door
بودنbudan
to be
داخلdâkhel
inside
بستهbaste
closed
Questions & Answers about اگر در گلخانه بسته مانده بود، آفتها به داخل نیامده بودند.
Why does this sentence use the past perfect (مانده بود and نیامده بودند) in both halves?
This is the standard way to form the third conditional in Farsi, which talks about an unreal or imaginary situation in the past. Farsi uses اگر (if) followed by the past perfect in the "if" clause. Unlike English (which uses "would have"), Farsi generally uses the past perfect in the result clause as well.
The word در usually means "in". How do we know it means "door" here?
در is a common homonym in Farsi. As a preposition it means "in", but as a noun it means "door". Here, it is linked to گلخانه (greenhouse) with an unseen ezafe vowel (dar-e golkhāneh), meaning "the door of the greenhouse". If it meant "in the greenhouse", there would be no ezafe and the clause would be missing a subject.
Why is there an extra ی (y) in the negative verb نیامده بودند?
The past participle comes from آمدن (to come), which starts with a vowel sound (ā). When adding the negative prefix نـ (na-), Farsi inserts the consonant ی (y) to smoothly bridge the two vowels. So, instead of the clunky na-āmadeh, it becomes نیامده (nayāmadeh).
How does the compound word گلخانه break down?
It is a combination of گل (flower) and خانه (house or room). Farsi creates many location words by adding to the end of a noun, perfectly matching the English concept of a "greenhouse".