Possessives in Farsi
Hello!

I am learning Farsi and am not sure how to translate these two sentences:

مادر زیور و زیبا را به ایشان دوست دارد 1

مادر زیور و زیبا را دوست دارد 2

I am having trouble knowing whether in 1) Zivar and Ziba like their mother or The mother of Zivar and Ziba likes them. In other words: how do I know that دوست دارد points to Zivar and Ziba or the mother?

I am guessing because دارد is conjugated in the 3rd person singular that the correct translation would be:

Zivar and Ziba like their mother.??

As for 2): what changes when leaving out به ایشان ?

Any help would be appreciated :)

Question

Possessives in Farsi
Hello!

I am learning Farsi and am not sure how to translate these two sentences:

مادر زیور و زیبا را به ایشان دوست دارد 1

مادر زیور و زیبا را دوست دارد 2

I am having trouble knowing whether in 1) Zivar and Ziba like their mother or The mother of Zivar and Ziba likes them. In other words: how do I know that دوست دارد points to Zivar and Ziba or the mother?

I am guessing because دارد is conjugated in the 3rd person singular that the correct translation would be:

Zivar and Ziba like their mother.??

As for 2): what changes when leaving out به ایشان ?

Any help would be appreciated :)

Answer

Hi!

The first sentence is wrong! Could you verify the source? Maybe it was:

مادرِ زیبا و زیور، ایشان را دوست دارد

Which still sounds weird but at least is grammatical. The literal translation would be "The mother of Zivar and Ziba loves them." Here, the ezafe (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ezāfe) added to "مادر" indicates possession, and "ایشان" is the third person plural [object] pronoun (which is never used in informal speech, BTW!)

The second sentence, "مادر، زیور و زیبا را دوست دارد" means "[The] mother loves Zivar and Ziba." Note that here, there's no ezafe and no possession. "زیور و زیبا" is the object.

Answer

we don't use
به ایشان دوست دارد
we say
به ایشان(به آن ها) علاقه دارد
in this case because the subject is mom this دارد 
refer to mom no zivar and ziba
but if zivar and ziba were subject it should be دارند
زیور و زیبا مادرشان را دوست دارند

Answer

1- It's wrong it has no meaning
2- The mother loves/likes Zivar & Ziba

Answer

like = شبیه

Answer

"The mother of Zivar and Ziba likes them" => who is "them" ?

Answers · 7

Still haven’t found your answers?

Don’t miss out on the opportunity to learn a language from the comfort of your own home. Browse our selection of experienced language tutors and enroll in your first lesson now!