The Persian ezafe, explained

Once you notice the ezafe, a huge amount of Persian sentence structure suddenly makes sense.

The ezafe اضافه is a short, unstressed -e sound that links a noun to what describes or belongs to it. It is one of the most important features of Persian, and it is usually not written.

Noun plus adjective

To attach an adjective, add -e between the noun and the adjective: ketab-e khub کتاب خوب means "good book," literally "book-e good." The adjective comes after the noun, joined by the ezafe.

Possession and connection

The same -e shows possession and relationship: ketab-e man (my book), dar-e khune (the door of the house), mashin-e baba (dad's car). Persian builds these chains smoothly, one ezafe after another.

After a vowel it becomes -ye

When a word ends in a vowel, the ezafe is pronounced -ye: khune-ye ma خانهٔ ما (our house). You hear the y glide, even though the spelling barely shows it.

The ezafe is invisible on the page but constant in speech. Train your ear for that little -e, and Persian phrases stop sounding like a string of separate words.