Word
پنجاه ثانیه طول میکشد تا این چای دم بکشد.
Meaning
It takes fifty seconds for this tea to brew.
Part of speech
sentence
Pronunciation
Course
Questions & Answers about پنجاه ثانیه طول میکشد تا این چای دم بکشد.
Why do we use تا instead of a word for 'for' or 'to'?
In Farsi expressions of time, we connect the duration to the action using تا (which usually means 'until'). You can think of this structure as literally saying 'It takes fifty seconds UNTIL this tea brews.'
Why is the verb دم بکشد in the subjunctive form here?
The conjunction تا sets up an expected but not-yet-realized result. In Farsi, this requires the following verb to be in the present subjunctive, which we can spot here by the بـ prefix added to the present stem of کشیدن.
The sentence translates to 'It takes...' but what does طول میکشد literally mean?
طول means 'length' and کشیدن means 'to pull' or 'to draw'. The compound verb طول کشیدن literally translates as 'to pull length', which is the standard Farsi idiom for an action taking a certain amount of time.
Both verbs in this sentence use a form of کشیدن. Is that a grammar rule?
No, it is just a fun coincidence of compound verbs! While طول کشیدن means 'to take time', the second verb دم کشیدن is a completely separate compound verb. دم means 'steam' or 'breath', and دم کشیدن is the specific phrase used for tea steeping or rice cooking.
Since fifty is a plural amount, shouldn't ثانیه (seconds) be pluralized?