Persian is read from right to left, English from left
to right. If an English speaker flips over a sentence made from
Persian magnets and reads it from left to right they will be reading
the sentence backwards. Not to panic! They will still get the idea
of what the sentence is about.
In fact, reading the sentence correctly
from
right to left may be more confusing to them than reading it backwards.
This is because Persian word order is different from
English
in two key ways. 1. The modifier comes before the word it modifies.
The modifier comes before the word it modifies. Here is the phrase “Your Father”.
From right to left, you read it “Pedar (e)* ShomA” - “Father
(e) Your.” To an English reader, it looks fine backwards
since “ShomA Pedar,” though backwards in Persian, looks
like “Your Father” going from left to right.
*Important
note about modifiers: In Persian, the modifier and
the modified are connected with an “ezAfe”. This is
an “e”
sound which is never shown but always pronounced that
comes at the end of the modifier. While it looks like
“Pedar
shomA”, you have to sound it
out as “Pedar-e shomA”. It can be translated to mean "of" (e.g., "father of you").
2. Persian sentence word order is different from English
Persian sentences use this order: Subject (S), Object (O), Verb (V) - (SOV).
English
sentences
use Subject,
Verb, Object (SVO). Consider this sentence:

The subject here is “your father”, the verb is “was” and the object is “a brave
man.” In Persian, from right to left, you read “Pedar (e) shomA
mard (e) shojA’-i* bud.” Which is “Father (e) your man (e)
brave-a* was.” In English, you would say “Your Father was a
brave man” (“shomA pedar bud yek shojA’ mard”).
*The
letter (ى) is very versatile. Here it is the “indefinite
suffix.” It is added to the phrase “mard (e) shojA’”
to make it indefinite
- “a” brave man, “some” brave man vs. “the” brave
man or “that” brave man. The letter should actually
be connected to the word
“shojA’” like so: شجاعى, but we are limiting ourselves
here to what you can do with words on magnetic tiles.
It may take some time to get used to these differences, but once you do, you
will feel your
brain getting
more flexible
and versatile
as you switch
back and forth
between languages.
For more information on word order, see Answers.com. And
don't forget the fun you can have with words in Object-Subject-Verb order, just like Yoda.
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