بیابان
“بیابان” (biyâbân) — desert in Persian. Noun, level A2. The desert of the map and the weather report: a land of little rain — yet the nights there are cold, strangely enough. The desert adjective takes the tail: biabani. In the desert the day is hot and the night cold, says the example. In a live sentence: “روز در بیابان گرم است و شب سرد” — In the desert the day is hot and the night is cold.
In short
| Written in Persian | بیابان |
| Read in Latin letters | biyâbân |
| Translation | desert |
| Part of speech | noun |
| Level | A2 |
Why it looks that way
The desert of the map and the weather report: a land of little rain — yet the nights there are cold, strangely enough. The desert adjective takes the tail: biabani. In the desert the day is hot and the night cold, says the example
A word with a story stays in memory longer than one learned as a “spelling — translation” pair: memory holds on to meaning, not to a string.
In a live sentence
A single word almost never appears alone in conversation. A sentence shows where it fits and what stands next to it.
- روز در بیابان گرم است و شب سردruz dar biyâbân gârm ast va shab sardIn the desert the day is hot and the night is cold
How not to forget this word
Reading a word and remembering it are different jobs. A day later, little survives of a single reading — and that is not bad memory, that is how memory works.
- This has been tested on foreign words too. The difference shows up most when you test yourself a few days later rather than straight away.checked many timesKim & Webb, 2022, Language Learning 72(2) · 48 experiments, 3,411 participants, 98 comparisons.
- Recalling beats re-reading. Covering the translation and trying to remember it does more than reading it ten more times.checked many timesAdesope, Trevisan & Sundararajan, 2017, Review of Educational Research 87(3) · 188 experiments, 272 comparisons. g = 0.61; against plain re-reading 0.51, against passive review 0.93.
- An answer you worked out yourself sticks better than one handed to you.checked many timesBertsch et al., 2007, Memory & Cognition 35(2) · 86 studies, 445 comparisons, d = 0.40.
Frequently asked
How do you say “desert” in Persian?
«بیابان», read “biyâbân”. In a live sentence: “روز در بیابان گرم است و شب سرد” — In the desert the day is hot and the night is cold. Noun, level A2; written with the characters ب, ی, ا, ب, ا, ن.
How is “بیابان” written in Latin letters?
biyâbân. This is a practical spelling — you need it to read aloud and be understood, not to meet an academic standard.
Why does this word look the way it does?
The desert of the map and the weather report: a land of little rain — yet the nights there are cold, strangely enough. The desert adjective takes the tail: biabani. In the desert the day is hot and the night cold, says the example. A word with a story stays in memory longer than a “spelling — translation” pair: memory holds on to meaning, not to a string.