گفتوگوی آنها خیلی طول کشید.goft-o-guye ânhâ kheyli tul keshid.
Their conversation took a long time.
Breakdown of گفتوگوی آنها خیلی طول کشید.
آنها
they
خیلی
very / many (of)
طول کشیدنtul keshidan
to take (time) / to last
گفتوگوgoftogu
conversation / dialogue
Questions & Answers about گفتوگوی آنها خیلی طول کشید.
How is the compound noun گفتوگو formed?
It is a coordinate compound noun meaning "conversation." While many of these are built using two past stems, گفتوگو pairs the past stem گفت (goft) with the present stem گو (gu) of the verb گفتن (to say). Joined by the conjunction و (pronounced "o" here), this "said-and-say" combination creates the abstract noun for a dialogue.
Why is there a ی added to the end of گفتوگو?
That is the bridge for the Ezafe. The sentence needs to link the noun گفتوگو to its owners, آنها (them), to mean "their conversation". Because گفتوگو ends in the long vowel sound "u", Farsi requires the consonant ی (y) to connect it to the "e" sound of the Ezafe, making it goft-o-gu-ye.
What is the literal meaning of طول کشید?
It literally means "pulled length". It comes from the compound verb طول کشیدن, where طول means "length" and کشیدن means "to pull" or "to drag". Farsi uses this idiom to express that an event "takes time" or "lasts". Here, it is in the simple past tense: it took time.
Since the sentence mentions آنها (them), why is the verb کشید singular?
The grammatical subject of the sentence is the گفتوگو (conversation), which is a singular thing. آنها is just the possessor describing whose conversation it was. Because "the conversation" is the thing that took a long time, the verb uses the third-person singular form.