# Persian: to tell someone off



## seitt

Greetings,

Please, how do you say in Colloquial Persian, “The teacher told the pupil off for smoking.”?

What is the most usual thing that people actually say?

All the best, and many thanks,

Simon


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## searcher123

A little question before answer:
What is the meaning of 'off for'? خاموش كردن؟ or ترك كردن؟


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## Qureshpor

searcher123 said:


> A little question before answer:
> What is the meaning of 'off for'? خاموش كردن؟ or ترك كردن؟



Simon means "to rebuke" or "to admonish" someone.


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## seitt

Ah, yes, good question.

"To tell off" is a phrasal verb. It means "to rebuke".

So, the sentence could be expressed as “The teacher rebuked the pupil for smoking.”

"For smoking" = "because he had smoked (a cigarette)"

Hope this is clear now.

For an English learner it is much easier to use "to rebuke someone" than "to tell someone off". Unfortunately, hardly anyone uses "rebuke" these days - except me maybe.


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## searcher123

Thank you so much. I learned a new things again. And again, another question before answering (I'm asking because I want to answer accurate, because I know you like accurate answers ). What is the real meaning of 'rebuke'? I mean, 'rebuke' is used for 'oral admonishment' or 'corporal punishment'?


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## Qureshpor

searcher123 said:


> Thank you so much. I learned a new things again. And again, another question before answering (I'm asking because I want to answer accurate, because I know you like accurate answers ). What is the real meaning of 'rebuke'? I mean, 'rebuke' is used for 'oral admonishment' or 'corporal punishment'?



In Urdu, we use a Farsi construction, "sar zanish". May be, you might use this too. What about "guush maaliidan"?


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## searcher123

We have سرزنش too. I asked exactly because the same things: سرزنش  is just an 'oral admonishment', but گوشمالي or توبيخ is an admonishment in action. In other word, when someone is توبيخ شده, there is not just an 'oral admonishment', but some of his feoff is defalcated too, for example. Or when someone is گوشمالي شده, maybe an 'corporal punishment' is applied too.


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## Qureshpor

searcher123 said:


> We have سرزنش too. I asked exactly because the same things: سرزنش  is just an 'oral admonishment', but گوشمالي or توبيخ is an admonishment in action. In other word, when someone is توبيخ شده, there is not just an 'oral admonishment', but some of his feoff is defalcated too, for example. Or when someone is گوشمالي شده, maybe an 'corporal punishment' is applied too.




Just words. Nothing physical!


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## searcher123

So the meaning is:

معلّم بابت/به خاطر سيگار كشيدن، شاگرد را سرزنش كرد


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## seitt

Many thanks, excellent. And of course you are right about wanting the best definition possible – that's the way forward!

I should just like to confirm that I agree that "rebuke" is not physical. In fact, you may be surprised to learn that even the word ‘punish’, at least nowadays, is primarily not physical.

The best rule: assume that nothing physical has taken place unless you know for certain that it has.

So, if you hear “The boy’s parents punished him.”, assume that they did not hit him but rather, for example, grounded him (i.e. banned him from going out).

If corporal (i.e. physical) punishment comes into it, it must be stated expressly: “the man punished his son corporally”, “the man smacked/caned his son” etc..


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## seitt

PS Re 'feoff is defalcated', it's not incorrect but almost nobody would understand it. I would recommend 'property is forfeited'.


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## searcher123

That is the same in Persian too. If I want to classification سرزنش كردن, توبيخ كردن and گوشمالي كردن in Persian, I should say:

سرزنش كردن is only oral, without any action. It is so inactive that in your example, when teacher is در حال سرزنش كردن his student, it is possible that the student is smoking at the same time.

توبيخ كردن is a level higher. In توبيخ كردن, the wrongdoer will pay something instead of his/her bad work, however, this penalty normally is financial or psychical. For example if [s]he is a member of staff, maybe his/her properties are forfeited or his/her work is registered in his/her case. In modern Persian, توبيخ كردن is used just for staffers (i.e. office employees). In other word, we will not say او بچه‌اش را توبيخ كرد, but we will say او بچه‌اش را تنبيه كرد

The level of تنبيه كردن is between توبيخ كردن and گوشمالي كردن/دادن. The same thing that you told about 'punishment' is exploitable for تنبيه كردن too. Even you can use it instead of توبيخ كردن in many cases (almost always).

گوشمالي كردن/دادن is at the highest level. There is a meaning of 'corporal punishment' in گوشمالي دادن, even if you don't use a 'corporal punishment'. In other word, when you say او بچه‌اش را گوشمالي داد, that mean او با بچه‌اش به قدري جدي و با قاطعيت برخورد كرد كه بچه‌اش حسابي متنبّه شد.


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## searcher123

Oh, and really thanks for your corrections. Very useful for me indeed.


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## seitt

You are more than welcome. And a big thank you to you in turn for the excellent, detailed contribution.


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## seitt

PS
After having a very good think, I think this is the best way of all: instead of "maybe his/her properties are forfeited or his/her work is registered in his/her case" let us say "maybe he/she is penalized or an official note is made of his/her offence".


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## searcher123

Thanks to the new too.


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## Ben422

searcher123's suggestions and explanations are definitely very good. However, there are a couple of other ways to say it in Persian. In daily conversation, we often use "کسی را دعوا کردن" which is of course different from "با کسی دعوا کردن". For example:

معلم به خاطر سیگار کشیدن او را دعوا کرد
معلم به خاطر سیگار کشیدن دعواش کرد

That's what I personally use in speaking. We can also use "به کسی توپیدن" (tupidan),"به کسی تشر زدن" (tashar zadan), "کسی را نهیب دادن" (neheeb daadan) and "به کسی نهیب زدن" (neheeb zadan) all of which mean "to speak angrily to someone for doing something wrong":

معلمِش به خاطر سیگار کشیدن به او تشر زد
معلمِش به خاطر سیگار کشیدن بِهِش تشر زد 

معلمِش به خاطر سیگار کشیدن بِهِش توپید
معلمِش به خاطر سیگار کشیدن توپید بِهِش 

معلم به خاطر سیگار کشیدن نهیبش داد


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## seitt

Many thanks - again I am amazed by the richness of your language.


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