چه‌جوری

What it means

چه‌جوری (che-juri) is the spoken-Persian question word meaning “how” or “in what way.” It is the colloquial counterpart of the more formal چطور (chetour) and even more formal چگونه (chegune). The word breaks down as چه (che, “what”) plus جوری (juri), an informal form meaning “sort, kind, or way” derived from جور (jur, “kind, type”). Together: “in what kind of way.” In relaxed conversation, چه‌جوری does the full work of asking how something happened, how to do something, or how someone is doing. Unlike چطور, which can appear in writing, چه‌جوری is almost exclusively spoken and marks the speaker as using natural, informal Persian rather than textbook language.

How to use it

• چه‌جوری شد؟ (che-juri shod?) “How did it happen? / How did it come about?”
• چه‌جوری بریم اونجا؟ (che-juri berim unja?) “How do we get there?”
• چه‌جوری بدونم؟ (che-juri bedânam?) “How am I supposed to know?”
• چه‌جوری اینو درست کنم؟ (che-juri ino dorost konam?) “How do I fix this?”

Cultural note

The phrase چه‌جوری is also used as a greeting in casual speech, roughly equivalent to “how’s it going?” A friend may say چه‌جوری؟ when they see you on the street, meaning something like “how are you doing?” rather than asking about a specific situation. This greeting use is warm and informal; using چطور هستید (chetour hastid) in the same context would sound stiff and formal by comparison.

References

• Dehkhoda
• Vajehyab