Persian (Farsi) vs Arabic: Same Script, Different Languages

Short answer: Persian (Farsi) and Arabic are two different languages from two different families. They look alike because Persian is written in the Arabic script, and they share thousands of words because Persian borrowed heavily from Arabic over many centuries. But the grammar is completely different: Persian is an Indo-European language, a distant cousin of English, with no grammatical gender, no "the", and the verb at the end of the sentence. Arabic is a Semitic language built on three-letter roots. A Persian speaker will recognise many Arabic words, but cannot follow an Arabic conversation without learning Arabic.

Farsi vs Arabic at a glance

"Farsi" is simply the Persian name for the Persian language (فارسی, fārsi). Britannica describes Persian as a member of the Iranian branch of the Indo-Iranian family. It is the official language of Iran; varieties called Dari and Tajik are official in Afghanistan and Tajikistan (Tajik is written in the Cyrillic alphabet).

Why they look so similar

After Islam reached Iran in the 7th century, Arabic became the language of religion and learning there. When Persian was written down again in the following centuries, it used Arabic letters, with four new letters for sounds Arabic lacks: پ p, چ ch, ژ zh and گ g. Our guide to why Arabic, Persian and Urdu letters look the same covers every letter and shape that differs.

Arabic words came with the script. The Encyclopaedia Iranica cites estimates that Arabic words made up about 30% of written Persian vocabulary in the 10th century and about 50% in the 12th, in religion, learning, administration and everyday life. So when you look at a Persian newspaper, many words are Arabic, but the sentences that hold them together are fully Persian.

Grammar: where the two languages part ways

1. Persian has no gender

Arabic splits almost everything into masculine and feminine: pronouns, verbs and adjectives. Persian has one word for "he" and "she", and verbs never change for gender.

In Arabic the adjective kabīr becomes kabīra with a feminine noun. In Persian, bozorg never changes.

2. The verb goes at the end

Persian puts the verb last, like Hindi, Urdu, Turkish or Japanese. Arabic usually puts it first or second.

• Arabic: قرأ عليّ الكتاب qaraʾa ʿAlī al-kitāb, word for word "read Ali the book".
• Persian: علی کتاب را خواند ʿAli ketāb rā khānd, word for word "Ali book (rā) read".

That little word را rā marks a definite direct object. Arabic has nothing like it.

3. No "the", but an "a"

Arabic marks definite nouns with الـ al-: كتاب kitāb "a book", الكتاب al-kitāb "the book". Persian has no word for "the". Instead it can mark an indefinite noun with -i or with یک yek ("one"): کتابی ketābi or یک کتاب yek ketāb, "a book".

4. The ezafe link

To join a noun to an adjective or to another noun, Persian adds a short vowel -e between them, called the ezafe. It is usually not written. Arabic does the same jobs with word order and its own rules (the iḍāfa construction).

Notice that Arabic repeats al- on the adjective, while Persian just adds -e.

5. Plurals: patterns vs one ending

Arabic has "broken plurals", where the inside of the word changes: كتاب kitāb → كتب kutub (books), ولد walad → أولاد awlād (boys, children). Persian mostly adds -hā: کتاب‌ها ketābhā (books). Iranica notes that Arabic broken plurals do appear in Persian, but mostly in the written language. Arabic also has a dual (كتابان kitābān, "two books"); Persian simply says دو کتاب do ketāb.

6. Verbs: roots vs stems

An Arabic verb grows from a root. From k-t-b you get كتبتُ katabtu (I wrote), أكتب aktubu (I write), كاتب kātib (writer) and مكتب maktab (office, desk). Britannica points out that Persian instead uses prefixes, suffixes and helper verbs. Each Persian verb has a past stem and a present stem:

Persian also builds many verbs from a noun plus a helper verb such as کردن kardan ("to do"), and the noun is often Arabic: فکر کردن fekr kardan (to think, from Arabic فكر fikr, "thought"). The Arabic word is borrowed; the grammar around it stays Persian.

7. Pronouns

Vocabulary: what is shared and what is not

Arabic words you will meet in Persian

Watch the meaning, though. Arabic صحبة ṣuḥba means "companionship", while Persian صحبت sohbat means "conversation", and صحبت کردن sohbat kardan is the everyday verb "to talk".

Everyday words that are completely different

The most basic words of Persian are its own, and many have Indo-European cousins in English:

The numbers show the family split clearly. Persian یک، دو، سه، چهار، پنج yek, do, se, chahār, panj sit close to English two and three and to Hindi do, tīn, chār, pāñch. Arabic واحد، اثنان، ثلاثة، أربعة، خمسة wāḥid, ithnān, thalātha, arbaʿa, khamsa come from a different family altogether.

Sounds: Persian is softer on the throat

Iranica describes what happens to Arabic sounds inside Persian: the "heavy" (emphatic) consonants and the th/dh sounds merge with plain ones, so ث س ص all become s, and ذ ز ض ظ all become z. ح becomes an ordinary h, ع survives only as a light catch in the voice, and ق is pronounced like غ. Arabic w usually becomes v, which is why waqt turns into vaqt.

Persian, in turn, has sounds Arabic lacks: p, ch, zh and g, and six vowels (a, e, o, ā, i, u) where Arabic has three short and three long ones. For Persian speakers learning Arabic, the throat sounds and the heavy consonants are the real work; our article on why some sounds are hard to pronounce in Arabic explains why the mouth falls back on familiar sounds.

The same sentences in both languages

Look at what is shared: salām, ḥāl and ism are Arabic words living inside Persian, and two of the three Persian ways to say "thank you" are built on Arabic words (the third, mersi, comes from French). But Arabic needs no verb "to be" in anā ṭālib, while Persian ends with هستم hastam, "I am".

Can Persian speakers understand Arabic?

Not really. A Persian speaker reading Arabic can sound out almost every word, will recognise many nouns and adjectives, and will often guess the topic of a formal text. But Arabic verbs, pronouns, small grammar words and most everyday vocabulary are new, so whole sentences stay out of reach. Spoken Arabic dialects are even harder to follow. The reverse is also true: an Arab hears familiar words in Persian, but not a language they understand.

There is one more difference worth knowing before you choose. Persian speakers write a language close to the one they speak; formal miravam ("I go") is simply shortened to miram in speech. Arabic learners must decide between Modern Standard Arabic and a spoken dialect; our guide on which Arabic to learn first helps with that choice.

Which is easier to learn?

For an English speaker, Persian grammar is usually lighter: no gender, a regular plural, verb endings that hardly ever change (although each verb's two stems must be learned) and a word order that feels logical once you get used to the verb at the end. Arabic asks for more: roots and patterns, broken plurals, gender agreement and its throat sounds. Our honest guide to whether Arabic is hard to learn breaks down which parts take time.

If Persian is your first language, you start Arabic with a real advantage: you already read the script and know a large stock of Arabic words. What you need is the Arabic sounds, the grammar and the everyday words Persian never borrowed. That is exactly where our complete Arabic video course begins, with each letter taught as an Arabic sound and your first sentences built step by step. You can also train your ear with our free Arabic audio lessons.