What it means
دوباره (dobâre) means “again” or “once more.” It is a native Persian compound: دو (do, meaning “two”) plus باره (bâre, meaning “time” or “occasion”), literally “a second time.” The element بار (bâr) meaning “time/instance” is the same one found in یکبار (yek-bâr, “once”) and چند بار (chand bâr, “several times”). دوباره is fully neutral in register and is understood and used by Persian speakers of every background, from children to academics. A close colloquial synonym is بازم (bâzam, a contracted form of باز هم), which has a slightly more casual, insistent flavor.
How to use it
- دوباره بگو. (dobâre bego.) “Say it again.”
- نمیخوام دوباره اشتباه کنم. (nemikhâm dobâre eshtebâh konam.) “I don’t want to make the same mistake again.”
- دوباره شروع کردیم. (dobâre shoru kardim.) “We started again.”
- دوباره برگشت؟ (dobâre bargasht?) “Did he come back again?”
Cultural note
دوباره appears constantly in Persian song lyrics and poetry as a word that carries both hope and resignation: the hope of a fresh beginning and the exhaustion of repetition. In instructional and educational contexts in Iran, teachers use دوباره repeatedly in class to ask students to repeat answers or exercises, so the word has a strong association with classroom learning. Its transparency as a compound (literally “two times”) makes it one of the first examples language teachers use to show students how Persian builds new words by combining simpler roots.