There is no "to be" verb in Pashto. 🤯 Let that sink in for a second. There's no infinitive "to be" form. You can't say "It's good to be here." We can't use "to be" as a verb and make normal verb phrases like we do in other languages.

In Pashto, we use a special structure called an equative phrase (EP) when we talk about something being something.

Basically with an equative phrase we have three main parts:

• "A" a subject (the thing we are talking about)
• "B" a predicate (what the thing is)
• "=" an equative at the end to join them together

Notice how the word order is different than it is in English.

There are two ways to build an equative phrase:

1. NP + Complement + Equative
2. NP + NP + Equative

The equative will always agree with the last NP in the phrase. So for #1 it will agree with the subject and for #2 it will agree with the predicate.

1. NP + Complement

This is the most common phrase you will see for describing what a subject is. With this kind of phrase we use an EP complement to describe the subject NP.

What's an EP Complement?

An EP complement is one of four things:

• adjective
• location adverb
• sandwich
• complement noun

Let's look at some examples using each of these kinds of complements. Click on the to see how the phrase in divided into blocks and click on the to change things and play around with the phrase.

With an adjective

An adjective is a word that describes what the subject is like. Notice that if possible, it will inflect to agree with the subject.

With a location adverb

A location adverb is a word that describes the location of the subject. Don't worry, it doesn't inflect.

With a sandwich

You can also use any kind of sandwich to describe the subject of an EP.

With a complement noun

In Pashto there are a lot of compound verbs that use nouns as the complement. For example, to become angry غوسه کېدل - ghwUsa kedul (to become angry) uses the complement غوسه - ghWusa (anger). This complement noun can also be used with an equative, for instance.

In English it would sound funny to say "I am anger," but in Pashto it's normal. These complement nouns get treated almost as if they were adjectives. Except...

You will notice how when people use these complement nouns with equatives they don't inflect based on the subject. For instance you could ask if someone is resting using the word استرحات - istiraháat (rest) from the compound verb استرحات کول - istirahaat kawul (to rest).

You don't inflect the استرحات - istiraháat (rest) because it's a noun, not an adjective.

It's not always that straightforward though. Some complement nouns get used so much they get treated (by some people) as adjectives and will inflect. A good example of this is the خبر - khabur (news) in خبرېدل - khabredul (to become aware of). Some people will inflect it, and some people won't.

2. NP + NP

Sometimes you need to say that an NP is an NP. The equative always agrees with the last NP.

Adding APs

You can add as many APs as you like to a phrase. For example if we wanted to say that the weather is good here we can add the AP دلته - dălta (here - adverb).

Try adding clicking the and adding other APs to this or other examples above.

Leaving out the subject

If it's obvious who/what you're talking about you can always leave out the subject.