What it means
تقریباً (taqriban) means “approximately,” “roughly,” or “almost.” It is borrowed from Arabic, formed from the Form II verbal noun تقریب (taqrib, “bringing near” or “approximation”), itself built on the root ق-ر-ب, meaning nearness or closeness. The ـاً ending is the Arabic adverbial tanwin, which Persian adopted wholesale along with hundreds of Arabic words. A useful contrast: تقریباً refers to nearness in quantity or degree (“about ten people”), while نزدیک (nazdik) refers more to physical proximity. It is register-neutral and extremely common at all CEFR levels.
How to use it
- تقریباً ده نفر اومدن. (taqriban dah nafar umadan.) “About ten people came.”
- تقریباً یه ساعت طول کشید. (taqriban ye sa’at tul keshid.) “It took approximately an hour.”
- کارم تقریباً تمومه. (karam taqriban tamume.) “My work is almost done.”
- تقریباً همه موافقن. (taqriban hame movafeghan.) “Almost everyone agrees.”
Cultural note
تقریباً is among the earliest adverbs that Persian learners encounter because it appears constantly in everyday speech, news broadcasts, and written texts. Like اکثراً, it entered Persian from Arabic through centuries of scholarly and literary exchange, and modern speakers use it with no sense of it being a foreign word. In informal Tehran speech you may also hear حدوداً (hodudan, “approximately”) used interchangeably, though تقریباً is the more widely understood form across all Persian-speaking regions including Iran, Afghanistan, and Tajikistan.