Learn Persian with Chai in conversation. Lesson 54.

In today's lesson we're going to go over some popular sayings in the Persian language. One of the most interesting parts about learning about different cultures is the very many idioms and expressions

languages have that sometimes don't even translate into other cultures.

An important part of understanding a culture is by understanding

these sayings and sometimes learning where the sayings come from. Expressions become a big part of a

culture that sometimes we don't even realize how strange they are until we try to translate them

for someone who speaks a different language. Let's start with the phrase we learned from last week,

Jotun Cholier. Do you remember what this means, Matt?

Yes, it means your place is empty, or you're missed. Right, exactly. So literally it means

your place is empty, but it's used to mean you are missed. So for example, if you've been

in a gathering and someone asks you how it went, you can't say,

it was great. You have to say, it was great, but you were missed. This is a form of taurow for politeness,

and lets people know that although you had a good time, it would have been better if they'd been there.

So, jatun khaliyya.

Jatun khaliyah.

Or you could say it in the past tense by saying,

Jotun khali boud.

Jotun khali boud.

Another way to say this is Jatun sabs boud.

Sabs is the color...

Green.

Exactly. So this phrase means your place was green, meaning there was grass growing where you should have been.

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