Persian Conversation 16: What Did You Do Last Weekend?

Talk about your weekend in Persian: going to the park, walking, playing soccer with friends, past tense, spoken vs written forms and a quiz.

What did you do last weekend?

Nima asks Peyman about his weekend. Peyman did nothing special: he went to the park and walked a little. Nima played soccer with his friends. The dialogue is a good model for talking about past activities with the simple past tense.

The key question is چی‌کار کردی؟ (chikâr kardi?), "what did you do?". آخر هفته (âkhar-e hafte), literally "the end of the week", means "weekend". In Iran, Friday is the main weekly day off.

The dialogue

Key words and phrases

Spoken vs written Persian

Spoken Persian shortens the object marker, the plural and possessive endings, and drops به, "to", before places.

Grammar note: the simple past

The simple past is the past stem plus a personal ending: رفت (raft) gives رفتم (raftam) "I went", رفتی (rafti) "you went". Compound verbs like قدم زدن and بازی کردن change only the verb part: قدم زدم, بازی کردم. The negative adds نـ (na-): نکردم (nakardam), "I didn't do".

کار خاصی نکردم, literally "I didn't do any special work", is the standard way to say "nothing special". Iranians commonly call soccer فوتبال (futbâl).

Try it yourself

• Ask a friend about their weekend: آخر هفته چی‌کار کردی؟
• Say you went to the cinema: رفتم سینما (raftam sinamâ).
• Say you didn't do anything special: کار خاصی نکردم.

Peyman returns the question with تو چی؟ (to chi?), "how about you?", one of the most useful short phrases in conversation. Nima answers with a full sentence that repeats the subject من to contrast his weekend with Peyman's. The reply چه خوب (che khub), "how nice", is a friendly reaction to any good news.

Time words usually come at the start of the sentence in Persian: دیروز رفتم پارک (diruz raftam pârk), "yesterday I went to the park"; دیشب فوتبال بازی کردم (dishab futbâl bâzi kardam), "last night I played soccer".

• Previous: Lesson 15 (at a cafe)
• Next: Lesson 17 (back from a trip)

Practice

1. Ask "What did you do last weekend?"

   Show answer

   âkhar-e hafte-ye gozashte chikâr kardi? آخر هفته‌ی گذشته چی‌کار کردی؟

2. What did Peyman do?

   Show answer

   He went to the park and walked a bit.

3. Say "I played soccer with my friends."

   Show answer

   man bâ dustâm futbâl bâzi kardam من با دوستام فوتبال بازی کردم

4. Give the written form of {{دوستام}}.

   Show answer

   dustânam دوستانم

5. Make {{بازی کردم}} negative.

   Show answer

   bâzi nakardam بازی نکردم

Find more dialogues in the Farsi conversation lessons series, and review the sounds behind the transliteration on the Persian pronunciation page.