This Persian (Farsi) lesson is all about the wonderful words of sports- or varzesh in Persian. Varzesh literally means physical exercise, but it's the word used for sports as well. Many of the words for different sports in the Persian language come directly from the western word, but some of them are different. The most common sport in Iran (and in many, many parts of the world) is soccer, which in Persian is footbāl. The sport we know of as 'football' in the United States is called footbāl āmrikāyee (American football) in Persian. Listen to the full lesson in order to learn the words for many team and individual sports.

In this Persian (Farsi) lesson, we learn the common terms for members of a family. Family in Persian is khānevādé. In this unit of Chai and Conversation, we are learning several vocabulary words related to a certain theme at once. Listen to the lesson for many different words associated with families. Listen to the lesson for many words related to this topic.

In this Persian / Farsi lesson, we go over vocabulary needed to talk about the home. In Persian, house is called 'khooné' (in written Persian, it's khāné). Different rooms in the house include: 

• room - otāgh
• bedroom - otāgh khāb
• bathroom - dast shoowee or toowālet
• dining room - āshpaz khooné
• living room - sālon. 

We also go over vocabulary for common parts of a house, like doors, windows, ceilings and floors, and furniture and popular items inside each of these rooms of the house.

Tehran Von Ghasri is a half African American, half Iranian comedian who reads and speaks Farsi fluently. Originally, I wanted to interview Tehran to ask him about being raised in a half Iranian family and how his father managed to keep him interested in the Persian language and culture. However, our interview took place a couple weeks after the Black Lives Matter movement erupted in the United States and all over the world following the death of Geroge Floyd. I had a lot of questions about his unique perspective of being half black and half Iranian, and particularly about the role of Iranian Americans in this movement. I learned so much from our conversation and hope that you will too.

In this lesson, Leyla and her husband Chris go over how to talk about emotions in the Persian language. This lesson is part of the vocabulary sprint series, so they go over several vocabulary words around the theme of feelings and emotions. In Farsi, emotions are called ehsāsat. We learn a few of the common emotions, such as being happy, sad, calm, depressed, nervous, etc. In addition, we learn the word hāl, which means something along the lines of 'being.' So when we ask 'hālet chetoré', which means 'How are you?', you are asking something along the lines of 'How is your state of being.'