Farsi of the day

Today's Farsi word I came across in a BBC Persian article. I couldn't actually find it in a dictionary, but taking it apart, I believe it's a compound of "book" and the verb "to read." If that's correct, it would be pronounced "ketabkhani" and would mean something like "book-reading." (The illustration bore this out, as it was a photo of a bunch of people reading books.)

This pleases me, because the word for "library" is "ketabkhaneh," which is literally "book-house." So you go to the ketabkhaneh to do your ketabkhani.

Farsi of the day

Today's Farsi came from the BBC Persian's top story. I was puzzling it out. The sounds are b-m-b, and so I was thinking: "bomab? bamib?"

Turns out it's "bomb." They directly transliterated the word. If you look at the headline, you might be able to recognize it. The full headline reads something like, "Dah ha khoshte dar seh anfajar bomb dar Iraq." That roughly translates to, "Ten killed in three [cities?] by bombs in Iraq."

It's not good news...

Farsi of the day

Today's Farsi is "kalak," meaning "trick."

Happy April Fools Day.

Farsi of the day

Today's Farsi is "pepper," which is just "felfel." I liked it because it sounded like pepper. :-)

Yesterday's Farsi of the Day

Yesterday's Farsi of the Day is "Harry Potter." It's pronounced "Ha-ree Pa-ter."

I learned this happy fact while skimming the BBC-Farsi news yesterday. I do this, despite the fact I don't actually have much clue what any of it says (I can find the sections that say "Iran" and "Jehan" (world) and "Mahmoud Ahmadinejad." But I digress). Anyway, I was rather excited to come across this article, because it's about Harry Potter. And I know Harry Potter. :-)

If I ever manage to translate enough of it to find out what it says, I'll let you know...

Weather

I've been contemplating the weather. It's being weird. I wish it would just allow bahar to injas, but not yet.

March 1: sunny shirt-sleeve and yard-work weather
March 2: cloudy, snowed
March 3: sunny, started melting
March 4: melted most of the rest of the way
March 5 (today): cold and cloudy

What's that saying about March? In like a lion, out like a lamb. That'd be "in like shir, out like barreh." I think it's being lionish just now.

But I know spring is coming, because Rebecca found the first spider (ankabot) of the season. So there.

Bahar injas

That's the Farsi for "spring is here."

That's not to say it couldn't have the occasional relapse into zemestan, as we are on a mountain and all, but for most intents and purposes we're in a springy sort of season.

The snow has melted in all but the deepest and shadowiest crevices. Daylight comes through my bathroom window again by 6:30 in the morning, and it's still light after six at night. We've gotten up to or past fifty degrees most of this week, and everybody's still wearing their winter coats around out of habit.

My office plants--Bertie Woozle the schefflera, and my palm tree (nameless here forever more)--are leaning hopefully toward the window, through which cloud-filtered sunbeams no longer quite make it. We only get sun inside during the wintriest months, when it stays so low it can reach under the eaves. The palm tree and I both need to go sit in the sun for a while. We're getting pale.

But the worst of it is, with spring comes spring fever. Who wants to stay inside on a day like this? We've got Louis Armstrong and Ella Fitzgerald playing on the radio, which only makes things worse. They had a live jazz pianist at that little seafood place in Alexandria, the day Ben and Lisa and Jonathan and I went.

I think Princess Amy expressed it well, after Perry dropped her off at her parents' castle. She thought summer would never come. But in the meantime, she had an endless array of dress fittings and thank-you notes to write!

Lavendar's blue,
Rosemary's green,
When you are king,
I shall be queen...

Word of the day

Today's word of the day is "bee." I'm rather excited because we've translated it into three languages. I knew the Farsi because Angelina taught it to me ages ago; Rebecca knew the Spanish; and a passing-by Russian patient was kind enough to oblige with her language. :-) (Gratia, can you give us Italian, too?)

Spanish: abeja

Russian: ptcholka

Farsi: zambor

Bzzz!

Farsi of the day

Today's Farsi is in honor of Olivia the pig, because I love Olivia.

I love her immortal phrase, "Where is my TOY???"

So, of course, when I came across a similar construction in my handy little Farsi grammar, I had to extrapolate.

Translated, Olivia would be yelling, "Asbabbazyam KOJAST?" More literally, that would be, "Toy-my where-IS?"

Doesn't it warm the cockles of your heart? :-)

Quote of the day

Nice patient: "Are you fluent in Persian?"

Me: "Oh, no!"

Nice patient: "You can just get by in it?"

Me: "I don't know if I can even get by. I don't have anyone to talk to in it, you see."

Nice patient: "You should get on Skype. I am sure lots of men would like to talk to a medical girl, and then you would get lots of practice. When I'm on my account, people are calling me all the time."


The nice patient leaves. I boggle.

I'm not sure I want to talk to random Iranian men on Skype...

Farsi of the day

Today's Farsi of the day is "fiil," meaning
"elephant."

This reminds me of the story where three blind sages met an elephant for the first time. The first felt its side, and said an elephant was like a wall. The second felt its trunk, and said an elephant was like a snake. I forget what the third sage felt, but it had no resemblance to walls or snakes, and the people back home didn't believe a word of it. The blind sages' testimony didn't agree, you see.

The moral of this story that you need to keep an eye on feelings and elephants. This philosophical illustration has been brought to you by me. :-)

Farsi of the day

And the Farsi for "fish" is "mahi."

That's as in, "mahi-mahi," which apparently in Farsi translates to "fish-fish."

Farsi of the day

And, of course, it would most unkind of me to leave you hanging after telling you what a maternal uncle is, without following up with a paternal uncle.

'Amu.

Farsi of the day

After quite the hiatus, Farsi of the day is back!

So. This word is "da'i," meaning "Maternal uncle." My da'i is Mike.

Farsi of the day

There was once a three-legged dawg that walked into a saloon. Nobody knew him; nobody knew where he'd come from.

The sheriff narrowed his eyes against the setting sun. He followed him in.

"We don't want no trouble in this here town," he said.

The three-legged dawg replied, "Sheriff, I ain't lookin' for trouble. I'm just lookin' for the man that shot my paw."

So you understand my delight when I discovered that the Farsi for foot is "pa."

It also occurred to me that I could adapt my favorite Farsi sentence, "The milk is in the refrigerator," using the word "foot." If, for some reason, you wished to say, "The foot is in the mouth," you could always say, "Pa toye dahan hast."

Farsi of the day

The word for "chair" is "sandaly," as in, "the young man walked off the beach sandily." He must not have had a very effective chair. Or maybe the chair had been washed onto the beach sandily too, and shared.

This reminded the good doctor of his Navy days, when he was doing--something--and there was a physician there who was also an Airborne Ranger. His (the flight surgeon's) unit made him the chairman, and used to carry him around in a beat-up folding chair like a palanquin, and shout, "CHAIRBORNE!"

Farsi of the day

Here I've been, working away at memorizing the words for "tasty" and "nasty-tasting," when the obvious struck me.

Both words share "maze." The other half is "khosh," which means "good," and "bad," meaning, predictably, "bad."

Now, "maze" here means "tasty." But "maze" is a lot like "maize," which is corn; and corn used to have a much broader meaning, and be used for any sort of grain, and by extension to mean any sort of food.

Khoshmaze: good food: tasty. Badmaze: bad food: nasty-tasting. Perhaps it's not quite that obvious, but it did make sense, and also made me happy. :-)

Farsi of the day

This Farsi word is one I tripped over in the dictionary when I was actually looking for "barghy" (electricity). But this one, "bargardandan," tickled me. It means "to upset." That so works.

"You really shouldn't have bargardandi the cat."

Farsi of the day

Today's Farsi is "gerba," meaning "cat." I illustrated. :-)

Farsi of the day

This, "ghaza-y khoshmaze," is "tasty food." Today (dar vastruz) the good doctor (doktor-e khub) will take us out for ghaza-y khoshmaze. I am looking forward to it; and perhaps at the end, I will post a fortune cookie fortune. :-)