Causative Verbs in Farsi: Making Someone Do Something

My cousin's kid in Tehran won't go to sleep. My aunt doesn't say "I sleep him." She says خوابوندمش (khâbundam-esh), which roughly translates to "I put-him-to-sleep'd him." That's a causative verb. You take an action (sleeping) and turn it into making someone else do that action (putting someone to sleep). English uses a whole extra sentence for this. Farsi bolts a suffix onto the verb and calls it a day.

If you've been studying Farsi for a while and still can't say "I made him leave" or "she got me to understand" or "they had it fixed," this is the grammar point you're missing. Textbooks usually bury farsi causative verbs in chapter 30, somewhere between the subjunctive and literary past tenses. But Iranians use them every day, in every conversation, without thinking about it.

What Causative Verbs Actually Do

A regular verb describes an action: خوابیدن (khâbidan, "to sleep"). A causative verb means "to MAKE someone do that action" or "to CAUSE that action to happen": خواباندن (khâbândan, "to put to sleep / to make someone sleep").

English handles this with helper verbs: "make," "have," "get," "let." Farsi has several strategies, and they range from elegant suffixes to compound verb constructions. Here's each one, formal and street versions side by side.

Strategy 1: The -ândan Suffix (The Clean One)

This is the classic Persian causative. Take a simple verb's past stem, add ـاندن (-ândan), and you've got a new verb that means "to cause (the original action)." It's clean, productive, and the foundation of the whole system.

The formula: Past stem + -ândan = causative infinitive

Notice the spoken pattern: -ândan becomes -undan in Tehrani. Every single time. My barber in Karaj says khâbundam not khâbândam. This is one of those shifts that textbooks mention in a footnote and real life uses 100% of the time.

Using -ândan Causatives in Sentences

These conjugate like any other verb. If you already know how Persian verb conjugation works, just treat the causative as a new infinitive and conjugate it normally.

Strategy 2: Kardan Constructions (The Flexible Workaround)

Not every verb plays nice with -ândan. Some causatives are formed with کردن (kardan, "to do/make") paired with an adjective or a noun. This works like English "make clean" = "clean it," but in Farsi it's the primary verb-building mechanism. If you've read about Farsi compound verbs, this pattern will feel familiar.

These are everywhere. When my roommate in Milan eats my leftover ghormeh sabzi, I say ناراحتم کرد (nârâhatam kard, "he upset me"). I don't think "hmm, this is a causative construction." It just comes out. That's the goal.

Kardan vs. Shodan: Cause It vs. It Happened

There's a clean pair here. کردن (kardan) = you cause the change (active). شدن (shodan) = the change happens (passive/result).

Master this pair and you've got the active/passive causative system in your pocket.

Strategy 3: Bâ'es Shodan / Majbur Kardan (When You Need More Force)

Sometimes the simple causative isn't enough. You need to express that something CAUSED a result, or someone FORCED someone to act. Farsi has specific constructions for this.

Bâ'es shodan: "to cause"

باعث شدن (bâ'es shodan) is more formal and describes a cause-and-effect relationship. You'll hear this in news, in arguments, and when people explain why something went wrong.

Note the که (ke) + subjunctive pattern after bâ'es shod in formal Farsi. In spoken Farsi, ke often drops out, and the subjunctive verb shortens. See Farsi sentence structure for how subordinate clauses work.

Majbur kardan: "to force"

مجبور کردن (majbur kardan) is direct, personal coercion. Someone made someone do something, and there wasn't much choice involved.

Other "force/cause" verbs worth knowing

• وادار کردن — vâdâr kardan — "to compel" (slightly softer than majbur kardan)
• واداشتن — vâdâshtan — "to get someone to do" (literary, less common in speech)
• گذاشتن — gozâshtan — "to let / to allow" (the permissive causative: "I let him go" = گذاشتم بره, gozâshtam bere)

Strategy 4: Spoken Shortcuts (How Tehran Actually Sounds)

Here's where it gets real. In daily Tehrani conversation, people compress causatives. Pronouns become suffixes. Vowels shorten. Whole syllables vanish. If you only learned the formal versions, you won't recognize these in conversation.

The pattern: the object pronoun glues directly onto the adjective or verb stem. Asabâni-ash, bidâr-esh, majbur-am. No separate râ, no separate pronoun. Everything fuses into one fast chunk.

Common Causatives You'll Hear Every Day

Stop memorizing grammar tables and start memorizing these phrases. They come up constantly.

That last one, دووندن (davundan), is great. Literally "to make someone run," but idiomatically it means to send someone on a wild goose chase. Bureaucracy in Iran? دووندنم (davundanam, "they gave me the runaround"). Iranians use this one weekly.

When to Use Which Strategy

Quick decision tree:

• The verb has a clean past stem? → Try -ândan first. Khâbidan → khâbândan. Tarsidan → tarsândan.
• You're working with an adjective or state? → Use kardan. Tamiz kardan (to clean), asabâni kardan (to anger).
• You want to express the result without an agent? → Use shodan. Tamiz shod (it got clean), asabâni shod (he got angry).
• You want to say someone FORCED the action? → Use majbur kardan or vâdâr kardan + subjunctive.
• You want to describe an impersonal cause? → Use bâ'es shodan + ke + subjunctive.
• You want to say you LET something happen? → Use gozâshtan + subjunctive. Gozâshtam bere ("I let him go").

If you're practicing these and want instant feedback, ZabanYar's AI tutor handles causative constructions well. It'll catch if you're using the formal -ândan when the spoken -undan is more natural, or if you're overcomplicating a simple kardan construction.

One Last Thing: Causatives That Don't Look Like Causatives

Some Farsi verbs are historically causative but nobody thinks of them that way anymore. They've been absorbed into daily vocabulary as standalone verbs.

• رساندن (resândan) — "to deliver." From residan (to arrive). You're "making something arrive."
• پوشاندن (pushândan) — "to dress someone." From pushidan (to wear). You're "making someone wear."
• نشاندن (neshândan) — "to seat someone." From neshestan (to sit). You're "making someone sit."
• سوزاندن (suzândan) — "to burn something." From sukhtan (to burn intransitively). You're "making it burn."

You probably already know some of these without realizing they're causatives. That's the point. Causative verbs aren't advanced grammar. They're vocabulary you've been half-learning all along. Now you have the system behind them.

FAQ

Get it wrong and the worst that happens is a warm laugh and a story they’ll tell for years. Get it right — refuse the tea twice, accept on the third — and you’ll watch a face open up. You didn’t just speak Persian. You played the game.