Learn Farsi: من هرگز چای‌دان را بدون قندان روی میز نمی‌گذارم. - I never put the tea caddy on the table without the sugar bowl.

The suffix -dān is used in derivational morphology to create nouns that mean "receptacle" or "container" for a specific item. By attaching it to چای (tea) and قند (sugar cube), it forms چای‌دان (tea caddy) and قندان (sugar bowl).

Why is there a half-space in چای‌دان but قندان is written as a single joined word?

While both use the same suffix, قندان is a very old, highly frequent household word in Persian and is traditionally joined together. چای‌دان uses a zero-width non-joiner (a half-space) to keep the base word and suffix visually distinct, which is standard practice in modern orthography, especially when the base word ends in a letter that connects to the left, like ی.

Since هرگز already means "never", why does the verb نمی‌گذارم have a negative prefix?

Persian uses negative concord (double negation). Whenever you use a negative adverb or pronoun like هرگز (never), هیچ‌کس (nobody), or هیچ‌وقت (never), the main verb must also take the negative prefix نـ. To an English speaker, it literally translates to "I never do not put."

Do I need to pronounce an ezafe after the preposition بدون?

Yes. Just like روی میز (on the table) which is pronounced , the preposition (without) requires an to connect it to the noun it modifies. You must pronounce the phrase as , even though the short vowel isn't written.