# Persian: به خود و با خود



## seitt

Hi

I’m a bit confused about the difference between به خود and با خود.

For example:
از ترس به خود لرزیدم.
and
با خود مشغول گلبازی می شدم

What exactly do they mean and how are they different from one another?

Best wishes

Simon


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## baran 20

HI.The difference is in the meaning.when you say با  means with or by  something or someone. When you say به it is a word (we call it :حرف اضافه) that always comes along such sentences.In addition, both به and با are harfe ezafe(حرف اضافه) in our grammer.  حرف اضافه are such as به , با , بر , روی , برای , تا , از , برای  and etc.For example: من از مدرسه آمدم.In comparison with English,they are like: with, to , for and so on.Therefore we can not say : از ترس خود لرزیدم It is a little hard for me to transfer the meaning of به. If you say  از ترس خود لرزیدم it means because I afraid of myself, I shook. when you use به before خود, it means because of fear,I shook or fear makes me be shaken. 
Sorry if  I have some grammatically or vocabulary problem.my English is not good.


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## agelwizutwings

"با" usually means "with" so با خود means "with oneself"; these are some examples: 

بچه را با خودش برد.: He took the child with himself.
با خود هدایایی آورده بودم. : I’d brought some gifts with myself.
با خود مشغول گلبازی می شدم.: I used to play games with myself. (here I don’t get what you mean by گلبازی?)

"به"  means “to” or “at” or “in” so  به خود  means “to oneself” “at oneself” “in oneself”, some examples:

به خودت بد کردی.: You did wrong to yourself.
به خودش نگاه کرد.: She looked at herself.
به خودش آمد.: He came to himself. He came to his senses. 
از ترس به خود لرزیدم.: I trembled (in myself) with fear. 

And sometimes in English there is no proposition like here:

به خودشان گفتند. : They told themselves. 
با خود پیمان بستم. : I promised myself.
با خود شرط می بندم.:  I bet myself.
از درد به خود می پیچید.: He was writhing in pain (in himself).

I hope I didn’t confuse you more


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## Stranger_

Better to say:

بچه را با خودش برد.: He took the child with *him*.
با خود هدایایی آورده بودم. : I’d brought some gifts with *me*.
به خودت بد کردی.: You *have wronged *yourself.


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## seitt

Many thanks, excellent.


> here I don’t get what you mean by گلبازی?


Sorry about گلبازی - I should have written it like this: گِل‌بازی. I now see why the author included that extra kasre – it's ambiguous otherwise.


> با خود مشغول گلبازی می شدم


Shall we translate this as, "I played with mud on my own (i.e. without any playmates)."?


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## agelwizutwings

seitt said:


> Shall we translate this as, "I played with mud on my own (i.e. without any playmates)."?


Yes, exactly.


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## agelwizutwings

Stranger_ said:


> Better to say:
> 
> بچه را با خودش برد.: He took the child with *him*.
> با خود هدایایی آورده بودم. : I’d brought some gifts with *me*.
> به خودت بد کردی.: You *have wronged *yourself.


Thanks for corrections.


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## seitt

Many thanks.

Just an idea – does the به خود in از ترس به خود لرزیدم mean that this trembling happened inside me or perhaps that I didn't show anyone else what I was feeling? Perhaps a good English translation might be, “I trembled inwardly from fear.” What do you think? Indeed, agelwizutwings’s translation is close to this, I'd say.

So, exactly which of the following two is meant?
1. This trembling happened deep inside me e.g. inside my heart.
or
2. I didn't show anyone else that I was trembling.

After all, presumably it's perfectly good Persian to say “از ترس لرزیدم”, isn’t it? So به خود must add something to the meaning.


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## colognial

seitt said:


> Many thanks.
> 
> Just an idea – does the به خود in از ترس به خود لرزیدم mean that this trembling happened inside me or perhaps that I didn't show anyone else what I was feeling? Perhaps a good English translation might be, “I trembled inwardly from fear.” What do you think? Indeed, agelwizutwings’s translation is close to this, I'd say.
> 
> So, exactly which of the following two is meant?
> 1. This trembling happened deep inside me e.g. inside my heart.
> or
> 2. I didn't show anyone else that I was trembling.
> 
> After all, presumably it's perfectly good Persian to say “از ترس لرزیدم”, isn’t it? So به خود must add something to the meaning.




Hello, seitt. I would say neither meaning is correct, though neither is too wide off the mark either! Think about 'az dard be khod meepeecheedam', where the implication is 'I was twisting and turning "about myself" with pain'. Now, the "about myself" is not very English-sounding, but it's nevertheless precisely what is suggested in the Persian sentence. The idea is, one's physical sensation brought on by some emotion or impulse consumes one's body totally. So, when you hear "az tars be khod larzeedam", you may correctly imagine the person shivering all over, as if fear was crawling about the person's skin thus covering it entirely.


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## seitt

How interesting – truly, Persian is one of the most expressive languages in the world when it comes to talking about feelings.


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## colognial

seitt said:


> How interesting – truly, Persian is one of the most expressive languages in the world when it comes to talking about feelings.



I'd never thought of it in that way. Just goes to show how one could take one's mother tongue for granted and fail to pay due attention to its characteristics. With me, It's always the questions that are asked about the Persian language that make me think, often for the first time, about this or that word or phrase or some rule of grammar: what it really expresses, what it's evolved from, what the connotations or possible implications to an unfamiliar ear may be, or how some rule may have exceptions making the understanding and learning of our language complicated. I've always associated Persian with a lack of precision, with ambivalence and a reluctance to be transparent. I think of this as a major characteristic of my language. Expressive when it comes to feelings and sensations? I would first need to look at examples, many of them, to ascertain this point, I think!


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## eskandar

colognial said:


> I've always associated Persian with a lack of precision, with ambivalence and a reluctance to be transparent. I think of this as a major characteristic of my language.


This is how I feel about Persian as well - in my opinion, many things are, by linguistic necessity, always left ambiguous and unclear in Persian.


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## colognial

eskandar said:


> This is how I feel about Persian as well - in my opinion, many things are, by linguistic necessity, always left ambiguous and unclear in Persian.


Thank you, eskandar. What may these "linguistic necessities" be, I wonder. Could you expand a bit on that, please?


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## eskandar

Here are three examples that come to mind:

(1) Gender is almost completely unmarked in Persian, rendering a great many sentences ambiguous as to whether the subject is male or female. Of course this can be avoided by naming the subject, or adding some information (eg. دختره می‌گفت instead of اون می‌گفت or something), but there's that.

(2) In the realm of vocabulary I feel that Persian is often less precise than, say, English. For example spoken Persian uses خوردن both for eating solids and for drinking liquids where in English, by necessity you would be more precise in your verb use. Of course it is possible to say نوشیدن in Persian to distinguish from خوردن . Similarly English differentiates between 'leg' and 'foot' where Persian generally covers both with پا . Again, it is possible to say لنگ to speak about the leg specifically. One more example is the difference between 'to soak [something]' and 'to wet [something]' in English, both of which are generally covered by خیس کردن \ خیساندن in Persian. In order to differentiate between the two actions (soaking and wetting, which are distinct in English), in Persian you'd have to add additional information.

Maybe the issue is that spoken Persian is less precise, whereas formal written Persian retains a greater ability for precision. There are also cases where one word is used in English to describe concepts that Persian has multiple, more precise words for (eg. 'cousin' in English vs. پسر/دختر عمو/دایی) but on the whole I feel that spoken English has a wider range of precise vocabulary than spoken Persian. It could be that that's just my perspective as a native English speaker, second-language Persian speaker - but my perspective also stems from my experience learning Persian, where I'd often explain the meaning of a single English word in Persian, only to be told by Iranians that "we don't have a single word for that."

(3) What I think you might have had in mind, colognial (although perhaps I'm mistaken) is the way تعارف makes Persian more vague and less clear. This is more a function of culture than a strict 'linguistic necessity' per se, though it's certainly an important factor in the ambiguity of Persian.


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## colognial

I have to go along with just about everything you say, eskandar. Two  points: لنگ as you most probably know is a bit of a vulgarity, in case  someone were going to happily put it to use every time they needed to  make the distinction between a foot and a leg! And then, culture IS  language (or could it be the other way round?) in as much as one  (which?) reflects the other: Perhaps we never thought it useful, or we  may have even found it harmful, to invent the gender! The Persian  mentality, and there must be such a thing, I think, resists precision  and relies on imagination or better still on the illusions that each of  one us as an individual wallows in or creates for the collective benefit  of other speakers. Having said all that, I'm not sure I personally  resent this particular lack of exact detail, this hugely imprecise way  of going about expressing things by just touching upon them, just  outlining them, or just making a coy reference to them. I feel that the  concepts are nonetheless there. It's almost as if there is a resource  alright, but we just don't feel like tapping into it all that often or  too thoroughly! Going back to what simon suggests above, perhaps what he  senses, looking with a fresh eye as it were at Persian, is the sort of  usage or coinage that comes with not wishing to describe at length or  graphically, a preference for concision and subtlety. I am not sure  about this though, and must leave it to Simon to clear up, using  English, naturally, so we can understand exactly what he is referring  to!


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## agelwizutwings

I think this lack of precision, can be the result of the fact that Persian for many centuries had been a language of poetry. While English has been a powerful language for prose for at least 300 years, regarding the rise of the novel in the 18th century. Unfortunately, Persian couldn't reach that maturity in prose, since nearly all prose works were written in Arabic, or if in Persian, they were widely influenced by Arabic vocabulary and/or grammar. Even Shahname which was written mostly to save Persian language was in poetry. It was in the 20th century, and with the woks of writers like Jamalzadeh and Hedayat that Persian prose, in its modern way, was put into practice.


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