What it means
بذار (bezâr) is the 2nd-person-singular imperative of the verb gozâshtan (“to let, to allow, to place”). It covers two senses at once: “let” (permit) and “put” (place down). Context decides which. Iranians use it dozens of times a day, often as a softener: بذار ببینم (bezâr bebinam), “let me see.” The structure is the same imperative prefix be- attached to a colloquial stem.
How to use it
- بذار فکر کنم (bezâr fekr konam) “let me think”
- بذار اینجا (bezâr injâ) “put it here”
- بذار من برم (bezâr man beram) “let me go”
- بذار حرف بزنم (bezâr harf bezanam) “let me speak”
- بذارش رو میز (bezâresh ru miz) “put it on the table”
- بذار یه چیزی بگم (bezâr ye chizi begam) “let me say something”
Spoken vs written
Spoken: بذار (bezâr). Written or formal: بگذار (begozâr). The full literary form keeps the گذ cluster intact. In spoken Tehrani the گ collapses and the ذ takes over. The spelling بذار is informal and typical of texts, captions, and dialogue; in essays or news writing you will see بگذار. Same word, two registers, two spellings.
The same compression hits other gozâshtan forms: گذاشتم (gozâshtam, “I placed”) becomes گذاشتم in writing but سنگیدم (sangidam) is unrelated; the spoken contraction usually keeps the past tense intact and only collapses the present and imperative stems. A common learner mistake is writing بگذار in a casual chat message: it reads as stiff or sarcastic, like writing “forsooth” in an SMS.
Cultural note
Bezar is one of the great softener words of spoken Persian. It buys the speaker a beat: بذار ببینم (bezâr bebinam, “let me see”), بذار فکر کنم (bezâr fekr konam, “let me think”), بذار بگم (bezâr begam, “let me say”). Without it, requests sound abrupt. With it, the same sentence becomes considered, polite, almost meditative. Learners who skip bezar end up sounding rushed.
The phrase بذار حال کنیم (bezâr hâl konim), “let us enjoy ourselves,” is the standard Iranian permission-grant for fun, said before turning up music or pouring more tea. It’s the same construction shopkeepers use to wave off polite refusals: بذار من حساب کنم (bezâr man hesâb konam), “let me pay,” a stock taarof move learners hear within their first week in Tehran.
References
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