What it means
فراموش کردن (farâmush kardan) means to forget something or someone. The element فراموش (farâmush) descends from Middle Persian farâmôsh, meaning forgotten or erased from mind, making this a fully native Persian construction. You use it for forgetting a name, forgetting to do something, or losing a memory over time. Its opposite is یادآوری کردن (yâdâvari kardan), meaning to remember or to recall. In casual speech you also hear یادم رفت (yâdam raft), literally my memory went, as an informal synonym for I forgot.
How to use it
- اسمشو فراموش کردم. (esmasho farâmush kardam.) “I forgot their name.”
- فراموش نکن کلید بیاری. (farâmush nakan kelid biâri.) “Don’t forget to bring the key.”
- اون روزا رو نمیتونم فراموش کنم. (on ruzâ ro nemitunam farâmush konam.) “I can’t forget those days.”
- چرا فراموش کردی بهم بگی؟ (cherâ farâmush kardi behem begi?) “Why did you forget to tell me?”
Cultural note
فراموش کردن carries a heavy literary presence in Persian poetry, where forgetting a beloved or being forgotten is one of the central pains of romantic verse. Poets like Hafez and Sa’di use forms of فراموش to describe the grief of being erased from someone’s heart. In everyday modern Persian the word has the same emotional weight as in English, covering everything from forgetting a shopping list to forgetting a person entirely, and the difference between those two feels just as significant to Persian speakers as it does in English.