To Be

In Persian, the verb 'To be' is بودن which becomes است in the present. However, its meaning can also be conveyed by adding the personal endings to the end of the nouns they apply to. However, in the 3rd person singular, the independent است is used. (The personal endings are part of the enclitics, the non-stressed endings.) For instance:

In the 3rd person plural, the ا has to be written (similar to است), but in both cases the forms also occur without ا. Inconsistencies such as this are not rare in spelling.

These suffixes can also be used with adjectives :

بزرگم : I am big
 * کوچکم : I am small

And with prepositions:


 * بیرونم : I am outside

When adding suffixes to a word ending in ه:

When adding suffixes to a word ending in ا:

When adding suffixes to a word ending in ی:

Note that هست can occasionally be used in place of these endings. It is mainly used for reasons of vowel harmony. Otherwise, it is normally used to express a certain emphasis and has the meaning of 'to be there' or 'to exist'. The personal endings are added to the special form هست, but as always, the 3rd person singular has no ending: Importantly, the full version of the verb in the present tense (etc ،استم، استی) is never used except for in the third person. In all other cases, use either the endings or هست.

The negative is formed in all of these cases with the personal endings added to the special form نیست. As usual, the 3rd person singular has no ending: The conjugation with the present stem ن)می باشم ,(ن)می باشی) etc. (No, me neither... - ed.) is only used in written language and should rather be regarded as official.