دست زدن

In short

Why it looks that way

Literally "to hit with the hand": dast hand + zadan strike. Be ghazaye dagh dast nazan: do not touch the hot food

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.

• به غذای داغ دست نزن.

  be gazâe dâg dâst nazan.

  Do not touch the hot food.

Nearby words: verbs

I want, I can, I am going, I know. The verb holds a sentence together: a few of the most frequent ones cover more everyday talk than a long list of nouns.

• می‌خواهم

  mi-khâham

  I want

  The present stem of khastan plus -am: one word says "I want". No pronoun needed — mikhaham already carries the I
• نوشیدن

  nâshidan

  to drink

  The dictionary form. Speech uses the stem nush — mi-nusham, I drink. From the same root as nushidani, any drinkable thing
• خوردن

  khârdan

  to eat

  The dictionary form, from the stem khor. It doubles as "to consume": sandal mikhore — it eats the wood, it corrodes
• دوست دارم

  duste dârâm

  I like

  Literally "I hold [you as] a friend": dus is friend, daram I hold. Love here is stated as friendship held in the hand
• رفتن

  râftan

  to go

  The dictionary form; the present stem is ro — miram, I go. Walking and riding are the same verb here
• داشتن

  dâshtan

  to have

  Having is holding: vaqt daram — I have time, literally "I hold time". No verb rises to say it twice
• زندگی کردن

  zendegi kân

  to live

  Literally "to do life": zendegi life + kardan to do. Living somewhere takes no preposition — dar Tehran zendegi mikonam
• کار کردن

  kâr kân

  to work

  To do work — the compound that says half of everyday activity. Dar resturan kar mikonam: I work at a restaurant
• یاد گرفتن

  yâd gereftan

  to learn

  Literally "to take into memory": yad memory + gereftan to take. Learning is taking, teaching is yad dadan — giving
• انتخاب کردن

  entekhâb kân

  to choose

  Entekhab is choice — mive entekhab mikonam: I choose fruit. The verb of the market and of elections alike

Test yourself

Five questions from the same set — “verbs”. Recalling a spelling from meaning is harder than knowing a familiar word on sight, and therefore more useful.

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 times
  Kim & 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 times
  Adesope, 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 times
  Bertsch et al., 2007, Memory & Cognition 35(2) · 86 studies, 445 comparisons, d = 0.40.

Next

• Verbs107 words on the topic
• هر وقت — wheneverread “har vagt”
• دو بار — twiceread “dâ bar”
• دو نفره — as a pairread “dâ nâfare”
• چند تا — severalread “chand tâ”
• All Persian wordsIndex by topic
• Why a word list doesn't sticka note