Town, Region and Country

You have been reading Persian on maps

Afghanistan. Pakistan. Uzbekistan. Tajikistan. Four countries whose names share an ending, and that ending is Persian. ستان- (-stan) means "the land of" or "the place of". It is not only for countries: Persian builds ordinary words with it too. Once you can see it, a long Persian word often turns out to be a short one with a place-ending on the back.

Where you live

Five words to learn, plus پارک (park), which Persian borrowed from English and you can already read:

Match each word to its meaning

The land of

ستان- (-stan) means the land of or the place of, and it goes on the end of a word. You already know it from the map: افغانستان (Afghanestan), the land of the Afghans, and تاجیکستان (Tajikestan), the land of the Tajiks. But it is an ordinary Persian ending, not only a country-name one. گل (gol) is a flower, so گلستان (golestan) is a flower garden. Use it as a reading tool. Meet a long word ending in ستان and take the ending off: what is left is usually a word you can look up, and the whole thing is a place connected with it.

What does گلستان mean?

گل (gol) means flower. So what does گلستان (golestan) mean?

• A flower garden: a place of flowers
• Many flowers
• A person who sells flowers
• Nothing: ستان only works on country names

The rule

The Persian ending _____ means "the land of" or "the place of". You have already been reading it on maps, in country names such as _____. It works on ordinary words too: گل means flower, so _____ is a flower garden. And notice the direction it runs in - this ending turns something into a _____, so when you meet a long word ending in it, take the ending _____ and see what is left.

Find the place-word

Here are three Persian words. Tap the one that has been built with the ending meaning "the land of".

• شهر
• گلستان
• مغازه

Order them by size

Put these four places in order, smallest first.

• خیابان (khiyaban) - street
• روستا (rusta) - village
• شهر (shahr) - city
• کشور (keshvar) - country

Which are true of ستان-?

Select the TWO correct statements about this ending.

• It means "the land of" or "the place of"
• It is used on ordinary words as well as on country names
• It makes a word plural
• It turns a place into a word for the people who live there

Use it

Three moments where the ending earns its keep.

• You meet a long Persian word ending in ستان that you have never seen. What do you do first?
• Someone says the ending only appears in country names. Are they right?
• You want to say which city you live in. Which word do you need?

Persian puts is at the end

The place words become sentences once you add است (ast - is) at the end, where English would not put it: - مغازه در خیابان است = "the shop is on the street". در (dar - in, on, at) sits before خیابان, and است closes the sentence. Without است it is not yet a sentence. - شهر من بزرگ است = "my city is big". من follows شهر to mean "my", the opposite of the English order. بزرگ (bozorg) is "big", and است closes it again.

Persian puts "my" after the noun

Persian puts "my" after the noun. Which of these says "my city is big"?

• شهر من بزرگ است (shahr-e man bozorg ast)
• من شهر بزرگ است (man shahr bozorg ast)
• شهر من بزرگ (shahr-e man bozorg)
• مغازه در خیابان است (maghazeh dar khiyaban ast)

Two endings, opposite directions

If you have studied another language in this family, you may have met an ending that does the reverse. It is worth knowing they are not the same trick.

City, country and street in Persian

A city is _____ and a village is _____. A country is _____ and a street is _____. And the ending _____ means "the land of", which is why so many country names on a map finish with it.

Where you live, and the Persian ending

Write in English about where you live, and then explain the Persian ending you have met in this module.

• Say whether you live in a village or a city, and give the Persian word for it
• Explain what ستان- means, and give two country names that show it
• Give the everyday example from this module, and say how the word was built
• Say what you would do on meeting a long Persian word that ends in it