Backgammon, Chess and Sports in Farsi: 15 Words

Short answer: Backgammon in Farsi is takhte-nard and chess is shatranj. Several sports sound close to their English names: football is futbâl, volleyball is vâleybâl and tennis is tenis. The general word for sport or exercise is varzesh, and a game or a match is bâzi. A champion is qahremân.

If you follow sport at all, half of this list will feel like a gift. Futbâl, basketbâl and tenis are close enough to English that you'll recognise them the first time you hear them.

The other half is where the real Farsi lives: the board games, the words for winning, and two different words for a champion. That's what I'd spend your time on.

Sports in Farsi

Games for small children are a different list, and they're in Farsi games and activities for kids.

Match and Winning

These are the words you need to talk about a game once it starts.

Two words for a champion

The table gives two words that both translate as champion or hero: qahremân and pahlavan. The glossary adds strongman to pahlavan, so it carries a sense of physical strength that qahremân doesn't list.

Both have glossary entries, and it's worth reading them side by side before you pick one.

Game, match and win

Bâzi is the busiest word on this page. The glossary gives it as game, play and match, so it covers a board game on the table and a football match on television. Mosâbeqeh is competition or match, and bord is the win.

Hadaf is listed as goal in the sense of an aim. The example sentence uses it for a personal goal, learning Persian, so treat it that way until you've heard it used for the ball in the net.

Board games to start with

If you're going to learn two words from this list, make them takhte-nard and shatranj. Each has its own glossary entry: backgammon and chess. From there, add varzesh, and you can say what you play and what you do for exercise.

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.