Настоящее время с می

One Persian present form does the work of English 'I eat', 'I'm eating' and often 'I'll eat': می‌خورم (mikhoram). It is built from three pieces: the prefix می‌ (mi-), the present stem of the verb, and a personal ending. The stem is the part you have to learn with each verb.

Romanization follows Tehran pronunciation: â is the long a, kh is the "ch" of Scottish loch, gh stands for both غ and ق, and ' marks a glottal stop.

Endings

The stress falls on می. Standard spelling separates می from the stem with a zero-width non-joiner (می‌خورم); in chats you will also see it joined (میخورم).

Present stems

The infinitive gives you the past stem (drop -an: خوردن → خورد), but the present stem often looks different and is listed in dictionaries next to the infinitive. These are worth learning first:

The last two show a very common sound change of Tehran speech: â before n often becomes u, so خانه (khâne, house) is khune and نان (nân, bread) is nun. Not every word follows it: ایران, قانون and انسان keep their â.

Compound verbs

A large share of Persian verbs are a noun or adjective plus a light verb, most often کردن. می goes on the verb part: کار می‌کنم (kâr mikonam) - I work; زندگی می‌کنیم (zendegi mikonim) - we live; صحبت می‌کنید؟ (sohbat mikonid?) - are you talking?

Three meanings, one form

• Habit: هر روز صبح نان و پنیر می‌خورم. - Every morning I eat bread and cheese. (written)
• Right now: چی می‌خونی؟ (chi mikhuni?) - What are you reading? (spoken)
• Planned future: فردا می‌رم شیراز. (fardâ miram Shirâz) - I'm going to Shiraz tomorrow. (spoken)

For English speakers

English needs 'do', '-ing' or 'will' to sort out these meanings; Persian leaves it to context and to time words such as الان (alân, now), هر روز (har ruz, every day) and فردا (fardâ, tomorrow). Two very common verbs stand outside the pattern: بودن (هستم, I am) and داشتن in the sense 'to have' (دارم) take no می in the present.

Mistakes English speakers make

• Dropping می: *خورم - say می‌خورم.
• Building the present on the past stem: *می‌رفتم for 'I go' means 'I was going' - say می‌روم.
• Forgetting the ending: *می‌خور - say می‌خورم.
• Adding می to داشتن: *می‌دارم - say دارم.