Question 1

Why does the second part of the sentence use نکرده بودیم (nakardeh budim) instead of a conditional verb like 'would have'?

Accepted Answer

In Farsi, the third conditional (talking about impossible past situations) is much simpler than in English! You just use the Past Perfect tense in both parts of the sentence. Since this is a negative sentence, both halves use the negative Past Perfect: هنگ نکرده بود (had not crashed) and بازیابی نکرده بودیم (had not recovered / would not have recovered).

Question 2

Is هنگ (hang) an English loanword?

Accepted Answer

Yes! It comes from the English computer term 'to hang' (when a machine stops responding). In Farsi, هنگ کردن (hang kardan) is the standard compound verb used for a computer, phone, app, or server crashing or freezing.

Question 3

Where exactly does the negative نـ (na-) prefix go in these long compound verbs?

Accepted Answer

In compound verbs like هنگ کردن (hang kardan) and بازیابی کردن (bazyabi kardan), the negative prefix always attaches to the action verb part, which here is کردن (kardan). It attaches directly to the past participle کرده (kardeh) to make نکرده (nakardeh). It never goes on the noun part (like هنگ) or the auxiliary verb (بود).

Question 4

Does داده را (dadeh ra) mean 'the data'?

Accepted Answer

Exactly. داده (dadeh) means 'data' or 'information'. Because we are talking about recovering specific data (the data on that crashed server), we add the definite object marker را (ra) right after it to show it is the specific direct object receiving the action.

اگر سرور هنگ نکرده بود، ما داده را بازیابی نکرده بودیم.

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