Common English Interference Mistakes in Farsi

I’ve been teaching Farsi to English speakers for years now, first casually to friends in Milan, then more seriously online. And I can tell you with absolute confidence: you all make the same mistakes. Not similar mistakes. The same ones. In the same order. With the same confused face when I correct you.

That’s not an insult. It’s a pattern. English wires your brain to expect certain things from a language, and Farsi violates almost every single one of those expectations. The verb goes at the end. Pronouns are optional. There’s a particle called را (râ) that has no English equivalent. Your prepositions are wrong. Your word order is wrong. Your instinct to say “I” at the start of every sentence is wrong.

So here are the 15 english speakers farsi mistakes I see constantly. Each one comes with why your English brain causes it, the correct Farsi, and a trick to stop doing it.

1. Putting the Verb in the Middle of the Sentence

English is SVO: Subject-Verb-Object. “I eat rice.” Farsi is SOV: Subject-Object-Verb. “I rice eat.” Every English speaker fights this for weeks.

The mistake:

من می‌خورم برنج — man mikhoram berenj — “I eat rice” (wrong order)

The correct version:

The fix: Think of Farsi sentences like a German subordinate clause. The verb is always waiting at the end, like the punchline of a joke. Build the whole scene first, then drop the action. For a deeper breakdown, read Farsi Sentence Structure: Why Everything Is Backwards.

2. Forgetting the Râ Marker on Direct Objects

This is the big one. English has no equivalent. را (râ, spoken as ro or o) marks a specific direct object. Skip it, and your sentence means something different or sounds broken.

The mistake:

من کتاب خواندم — man ketâb khândam — “I read a book” (generic, unspecified)

When you meant:

The fix: Every time you’d say “the” in English before a direct object, that object needs را in Farsi. “I saw the cat” = گربه را دیدم (gorbe râ didam). “I saw a cat” = no râ. I wrote a whole post on this: The Farsi Râ Marker Explained.

3. Using “Man” (I) at the Start of Every Sentence

English requires a subject pronoun. “Went to the store” is a sentence fragment. In Farsi, the verb ending already tells you who’s doing the action. Saying من (man, “I”) every time sounds like you’re in a job interview, not a conversation.

The mistake:

من می‌روم. من غذا می‌خورم. من خسته هستم.
Man miravam. Man ghazâ mikhoram. Man khaste hastam.
“I go. I eat food. I am tired.” (robotic, over-pronoun’d)

How Iranians actually talk:

The fix: Drop the pronoun by default. Only use من for emphasis or contrast: “I went, but SHE didn’t.” See Farsi Pronouns: Why ‘You’ Has Six Versions for the full picture.

4. Translating Prepositions Word-for-Word

In English you “think ABOUT” something. In Farsi you “think TO” something: فکر کردن به (fekr kardan be). You “depend ON” someone in English. In Farsi you “depend TO”: بستگی داشتن به (bastegi dâshtan be). Direct preposition translation is a guaranteed way to sound unnatural.

Common preposition mismatches:

• “Interested IN” → علاقه‌مند به — alâghemand be (interested TO)
• “Afraid OF” → ترسیدن از — tarsidan az (afraid FROM)
• “Wait FOR” → صبر کردن برای (formal) / منتظر … بودن (common) — sabr kardan barâye
• “Laugh AT” → خندیدن به — khandidan be (laugh TO)
• “Married TO” → ازدواج کردن با — ezdevâj kardan bâ (married WITH)

The fix: Learn verbs WITH their prepositions as a single unit. Don’t learn fekr kardan (“to think”) alone. Learn fekr kardan be (“to think about”). Treat it like one vocabulary item. More on this in Farsi Prepositions: The 15 That Actually Matter.

5. Saying “Man Dâram…” to Mean “I Am Doing…”

English uses “I am doing” (present continuous) all the time. Some learners hear that Farsi has داشتن (dâshtan) as a continuous marker and start slapping it on everything. But Farsi present tense already covers both simple and continuous meaning. You only need dâshtan for emphasis on “right this second.”

The mistake:

من دارم فارسی یاد می‌گیرم — man dâram fârsi yâd migiram — “I am learning Farsi” (too emphatic for casual conversation)

What to say instead:

Save dâram for when you really want to stress the “right now” aspect: دارم غذا درست می‌کنم، زنگ نزن (dâram ghazâ dorost mikonam, zang nazan) — “I’m CURRENTLY making food, don’t call.”

6. Making Adjectives Agree with Gender (There Is No Gender)

If you studied French, Spanish, Arabic, or Hindi before Farsi, your brain expects adjective agreement. Good news: Farsi has zero grammatical gender. No masculine/feminine nouns, no adjective endings to match. بزرگ (bozorg, “big”) is bozorg for a man, a woman, a table, and a whale. No changes, ever.

The fix: Nothing to fix. Just enjoy this. Farsi gave you a gift. Accept it.

7. Using “Ast” for Everything (Over-Using the Copula)

In formal Farsi, “is” = است (ast). But in spoken Farsi, it collapses into a suffix. Saying ast in conversation sounds like you’re reading a government decree.

The fix: In spoken Farsi, glue the copula to the end of the word. Khub-e (is good), bozorg-e (is big), injâ-st (is here). Textbooks teach ast first, which is correct for reading. But if you USE it in speech, Iranians will think you’re narrating a documentary.

8. Pluralizing Everything

English demands plural markers: “two books,” “many cats.” Farsi often doesn’t. After numbers, the noun stays singular. After chand (some/a few), singular. It’s the opposite of what English trained you to expect.

The mistake:

سه کتاب‌ها — se ketâb-hâ — “three books” (WRONG: double-plural)

Correct:

The fix: If there’s a number or quantity word before the noun, drop the plural suffix. The number already tells you it’s multiple.

9. Stressing the Wrong Syllable

English stress is unpredictable (PHOtograph vs. photoGRAPHy). Farsi stress is almost always on the last syllable. English speakers constantly front-load stress because it feels natural to them.

The mistake: Saying KE-tab instead of ke-TAB (book). Or DA-neshjoo instead of dânesh-JU (student).

The fix: Default rule: stress the last syllable. Exceptions exist (negation prefixes like نه/na- take stress, verbs stress the prefix), but the last-syllable rule covers 80% of words.

10. Saying “Bâle” When You Mean “Yes” in Conversation

بله (bale) is “yes,” sure. But it’s formal. In Tehran, people say آره (âre). Using bale in casual conversation is like answering your friend’s text with “Indeed.” You’re technically correct and socially weird.

11. Translating “Have” Literally for Possession

English: “I have a car.” Simple. Farsi uses داشتن (dâshtan) the same way, so this one works. But English speakers then try to use “have” for experiences: “I have been to Iran.” Farsi doesn’t do that. For experiences, you use رفتن (raftan) in past tense directly.

The mistake:

من داشته‌ام به ایران — man dâshte-am be Irân — (meaningless word salad)

Correct:

12. Using “Ke” Like English “That” in Every Relative Clause

English: “The man that I saw.” English speakers stuff که (ke) into every Farsi sentence the same way. But Farsi has a different relative clause structure, and sometimes ke isn’t needed, or you need it plus a pronoun echo.

The mistake:

مردی که من دیدم که — mardi ke man didam ke — (double ke, broken)

Correct:

That ـش (-esh) at the end of didamesh is key in spoken Farsi. It echoes the object back. English doesn’t do this (“the man that I saw HIM” is wrong in English but correct in spoken Farsi).

13. Confusing Ezâfe with “Of”

The ezâfe (ـِ, a short “e” sound) connects nouns to adjectives and possessors in Farsi. English speakers think it means “of” and use it like one. It doesn’t work that way.

Correct ezâfe use:

• کتابِ بزرگ — ketâb-e bozorg — “the big book” (noun + adjective)
• کتابِ من — ketâb-e man — “my book” (noun + possessor)
• درِ خانه — dar-e khâne — “the door of the house” (noun + noun)

The fix: Ezâfe is an invisible connector, not a word. It’s spoken but rarely written. Think of it as Farsi’s way of saying “this noun is connected to the next word.” Adjective after noun, possessor after noun, always linked by ezâfe.

14. Negating Verbs Incorrectly

English negation: add “don’t/doesn’t/not.” Farsi negation: add ن (na-/ne-) as a prefix to the verb. English speakers either forget this, put “na” as a separate word, or negate the wrong part of the sentence.

The mistake: Saying من نه می‌روم (man na miravam) as two separate words, or using نیست (nist) for everything like English “not.” The negation prefix is glued onto the verb. Miravam → nemiravam. Mikhoram → nemikhoram.

15. Using Formal Register When Everyone Around You Is Speaking Colloquial

This isn’t a grammar mistake. It’s a social one. And it’s the most common one I see. Students learn textbook Farsi, then walk into a conversation in Tehran and sound like they’re reading the evening news. Iranians will understand you. They’ll also immediately code you as a foreigner who learned from a book.

The fix: Learn both registers. Read the formal to recognize it in writing and news. Speak the colloquial because that’s what real people actually use. Every example in this post shows both for exactly this reason.

The Pattern Behind All 15 Mistakes

Look at the list again. Every single mistake comes from one place: assuming Farsi works like English. It doesn’t. The verb goes at the end. Pronouns are optional. Objects get a specificity marker. Prepositions follow different logic. Negation is a prefix. Plurals disappear after numbers.

The fastest way to stop making these mistakes? Stop translating from English. Start thinking in Farsi patterns. Build sentences from the Persian blueprint, not the English one. If you’re practicing with ZabanYar, the AI tutor catches these exact interference patterns and corrects them in real time, which is faster than memorizing rules from a list.

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