ما (mâ) is the Persian “we”: collective, simple, and occasionally used by one person who wants to sound like a kingdom.
What it actually means
ما is the first-person plural pronoun: “we” as subject, “us” as object. It covers every group the speaker is part of: ما ایرانیها (mâ irâni-hâ) “we Iranians”, ما خانواده (mâ khânevâde) “our family”, ما دو نفر (mâ do nafar) “the two of us”. Like من, ما carries no T-V split. Persian also uses ما in a curious singular sense: an individual speaker referring to themselves in the plural for humility, modesty, or rhetorical weight. “ما که گفتیم” (mâ ke goftim, “we said so”) can mean “I said so” with a softening, distancing effect. This royal-we sense shows up in editorial writing, political speeches, and old-school poetry. As with من, ما often gets dropped because the verb ending (-im) already marks first-person plural: میریم (mirim) means “we’re going” without any pronoun.
How to say it
Formal
mâ
“we, us”
ما
Colloquial (Tehrani)
mâ
no register shift
ما
How to use it
- ما فردا میایم. · mâ fardâ miâim. · We’re coming tomorrow.
- برای ما فرقی نداره. · barâ-ye mâ farghi nadâre. · It makes no difference to us.
- ما که گفتیم نمیشه. · mâ ke goftim nemishe. · We (I) said it wouldn’t work.
Common pairings
- ما همه (mâ hame) “all of us”
- برای ما (barâ-ye mâ) “for us”
- پیش ما (pish-e mâ) “with us, at our place”
- ما ایرانیها (mâ irâni-hâ) “we Iranians”
Cultural note
The royal-we use of ما is alive in Persian. A father telling his teenager “ما اینطور بزرگ نشدیم” (we weren’t raised this way) means “I wasn’t raised this way” but uses the plural to claim the weight of a generation behind him. Politicians use it to sound less personal: “ما به این نتیجه رسیدیم” (we have come to this conclusion) is softer and more authoritative than “من به این نتیجه رسیدم”. In intimate poetry, lovers sometimes use ما to fold themselves into a unit: “ما دو تا” (the two of us) is a tiny phrase that carries a whole relationship.
Related
Other pronouns: من (man) “I”, تو (to) “you (intimate)”, شما (shomâ) “you (formal/plural)”. For pronoun behavior, see the Persian grammar guide.
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