مال شما

In short

Why it looks that way

Ownership aimed respectfully: mal-e shoma. Shopkeepers say it handing you your change

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.

• این شهر مال شما است

  in shahr mâle shâmâ ast

  This city is yours (pl.)

Nearby words: pronouns

I, you, we, they. There is a handful of them, they turn up in every sentence, and politeness rides on them: most of these languages keep a formal “you” apart from a familiar one, and choosing the wrong one is noticed faster than a mispronounced word.

• من

  man

  I

  Almost never dropped: the verb ending already says who acts, so man stays when you press the point — I, personally
• تو

  tâ

  you (singular)

  For close friends, family and children only. To a stranger it jumps straight to shoma, the polite you, from the first sentence
• شما

  shâmâ

  you (polite)

  The respectful you, and it serves one respected person too — the same move as French vous. Its verb goes plural
• او

  u

  he / she

  One word for he and she: no gender in the pronoun at all. Who exactly is meant, the sentence around it has to tell
• ما

  mâ

  we

  A plain we with no room for nuance: no separate "we including you" versus "we without you"
• شماها

  shâmâhâ

  you (all)

  The polite plural you: the everyday speech covers "you all" with shomâ plus -hâ. The verb agrees in second person: shomâhâ hastid
• آنان

  ânân

  they

  The bookish aanan, colloquial oonâ. The verb agrees in third person: ânhâ hastand
• مال من

  mâle man

  mine

  The ownership formula: mal is property, so male man is "of me". The word that answers "whose?" every time
• مال تو

  mâle tâ

  yours

  Property of you: mal + the pronoun. For the polite you it becomes male shoma without changing shape
• مال ما

  mâle mâ

  ours

  The same mal, "property", with we inside: male ma. A flat formula — the pronoun is the only thing that ever moves

Test yourself

Five questions from the same set — “pronouns”. 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

• Pronouns26 words on the topic
• مال او — his / hers / theirsread “mâle u”
• خودم — myselfread “khâdâm”
• خود — selfread “khâd”
• همه — all / everyoneread “hame”
• All Persian wordsIndex by topic
• Why a word list doesn't sticka note