In Persian, what's the difference between saying 'yek' as one, or an item, and saying 'yeki'?

Question

Also please explain the significance of 'yeki bud, yeki nabud'

I understand what 'yeki bud yeki nabud' means. I want to know why they use it to start stories. 'One was, one was not' seems to make little sense as a way to start a story. So what does it imply?

Answer 1

Ok, here goes a little bit of English grammar, since I teach it a lot!!!

'YEK' in Persian means "one"; it's a number. Much like
One, two, three,... we have
YEK, DO, SE,...

'YEKI' is demonstrative.
Imagine this:
You go to a jewellery shop and say: "can I have one (YEK) ring?"
And shopkeeper says: "which one (YEKI)?" and you reply: "that one (YEKI)"

The confusion is because there is only one word in English for both these words. This happens a lot in my classes.

About 'YEKI BUD, YEKI NABUD' the expression in Persian means "someone existed, another didn’t" (in this expression YEKI refers to a person) but since it means nothing in the English culture we match it with "once upon a time" in English. The expression is used when someone wants to start telling a story (usually to a child). Much like when English parents want to tell a story to their kids, they say "once upon a time..."

Hope all this helped.

ps. by English I meant English speakers not British people! Thought I should say this, in order not to get criticised! lol

Answer 2

yek means the number 1. yeki means 1 of. for example, 1 apple- yek apple. 1 of those apples-
yeki apple.
at least i think thats it. r u persian too?

oh,and to clear up your other q. yeki bud means 1 of them/those was. yeki nabud means 1 of those/ them weren't.

Answer 3

It is the same but sometimes i say tanah yek don as (theres only one) If some1 asks u how many there is u say yeki sometime like that but good question!!

Answer 4

yek is number, yeki can mean "a", "an", "some" etc