How to Say How Are You in Persian (Farsi)

Four short lines cover the whole exchange. You ask with Chetori? and you answer with Khoobam. You hand the question back with To chi?, which means what about you. And when the person in front of you is an elder, you ask with Chetorin? instead.

In Persian this exchange is a small ritual, closer to a handshake than a medical question. Two people who run into each other will often trade it two or three times in a row, asking, answering and asking again, before they say what they came to say. Skipping it feels abrupt, and doing it well is the quickest way to sound warm.

Chetori? is for the people you are close to or equal with: friends, cousins, siblings, classmates, anyone your age or younger. You can ask it face to face, on a call or in a text.

Chetorin? is for people you owe respect. Use it with a grandparent, a parent's friend, a teacher, a neighbor you do not know well, or any group of two or more people. A shop owner or a stranger who is clearly older also gets Chetorin?. If you are not sure, the polite version is the safe one, because a respectful question rarely offends anyone.

When you meet someone for the first time and they are your age, many people start with Chetorin? and switch to Chetori? once the ice has melted. A friendly Persian speaker will often tell you to relax into the casual form.

Persian has two words for you. To is the friendly one and Shoma is the respectful one. The choice of how are you follows the same line: Chetori? goes with to, and Chetorin? goes with shoma.

Shoma also means you in the plural, so it is the natural choice when you are talking to more than one person at once. Add it for clarity when you hand the question back to an elder: Khoobam merci, shoma chetorin?. With a friend, To chi? is all you need.

Chetori? breaks into two pieces. Chetor means how, and -i is the ending that means you are. So Chetori? says how are you, one person, in a friendly way. The same -i turns Khoob into Khoobi?, which asks whether you are doing good.

Chetorin? is the same word with -in on the end. That one ending marks a respectful you, or several people, and it works the same on other words: Khoobin? is the polite version of Khoobi?. Once you see the pattern you do not memorize two phrases, you memorize one rule and a pair of endings.

The ending -am is the mirror of -i. Khoob plus -am gives Khoobam, I'm good. So the question and its answer share a stem and swap the ending.

Khoobam is the default answer, and it is polite even on a bad day. If you want to say more, there are short answers that fit the feeling. Kheyli khoobam turns the volume up. Khastam says you are tired, Khoshhalam says you are happy, and Narahatam says you are upset.

For a real problem, Halam khoob nist means I'm not well, and a friend or a family member will respond right away. A common companion to the question is Che khabar?, what's new, and the everyday answer when nothing is new is Salamati, all good.

Here is how it sounds on a phone call with a parent, then at a grandparent's door. Notice that the question comes back every time.

Finglish by Iranopedia teaches this exchange in its first lesson, as a conversation you can hear, so you pick up the rhythm along with the words.