کار

Persian کار covers everything from a job to a task to a piece of art. The word is wider than its English translation suggests.

What it actually means

کار means “work,” but the meaning sprawls. It covers your job (“کار من معلمیه”, my work is teaching), a specific task (“این کار سخته”, this work is hard), a creative output (“کار هنری”, artistic work), and casual doing (“چیکار می‌کنی؟”, what are you doing?). Iranian small talk almost always opens with “کار چطوره؟” (how’s work?), the way English opens with “how are you?” The word is so common that it works as a casual filler. کار also sits inside Persian’s most productive verb structure: thousands of compound verbs end in کار کردن (to work) or use the related کردن (to do). If you only learn five Persian nouns, this is one of them.

How to say it

No register shift. کار is identical in spoken and written Persian. It often glues onto other words to form compounds like کارمند (employee), کارگر (worker), کارخانه (factory, literally “work-house”), and the verb کار کردن (to work).

In a sentence

Cultural note

کار is one of Persian’s deepest native words. It traces to Old Persian *kar- “to do, make,” related to Sanskrit kṛ- and ultimately to the Proto-Indo-European root *kʷer- (the same root that produced English “create” via Latin). The same root powers the verb کردن (to do), which is the engine behind nearly every Persian compound verb. When Iranians ask “کار میکنی؟” they are asking both “do you have a job?” and “what are you up to?” The double meaning runs through the whole Persian relationship with productivity. Work is both labor and just doing. Iranian society values “شغل پایدار” (stable employment), and government, teaching, and medicine remain prestige tracks. Younger generations chase tech and freelance work abroad.

Related

You will see this word paired with کردن (to do, the verb that builds compound verbs with کار), پول (money, what کار earns), and مدرسه (school, where work begins for Iranians). For the formal vocabulary you need at the office, see 50 essential Persian business vocabulary terms.