# Persian: tips to learn it



## Jocaste

Hi everyone ^^

I'm very interested in Persian and I'm looking for a book to learn it.
An instruction book you know.

Does anyone know a book like this ?

Thanks in advance for any help


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## Spectre scolaire

Personally I like Ann K.S.Lambton: _Persian Grammar_, but I’ve got a couple of _caveat_s:

I bought this book about 30 years ago. Judging from its popularity, however, it does not seem to have lost its appeal. It may be slightly old-fashioned in its choice of vocabulary, but I appreciated Lambton’s general approach to the language. She explains grammar as I want it to be explained, i.e. _not_ “I am a girl” written in a balloon accompanied by a drawing of a girl... Lambton probably knew that people learning Persian are mostly academics (or weirdos  ), not tourists. In fact, Lambton is clear-cut in her teaching methodology, and the lay-out is excellent.

A rather more important caveat is that I can’t give a full judgment of the book as I never had the opportunity to finish it. 

A curiosity – which has nothing to do with the author! – is that exactly one third of the book (the last third) contains a synopsis of the _Arabic language_. Perhaps a rather more modern textbook would have to devote 2/5 of the book for the same purpose... 
 ​*PS*: I now see that Lambton’s _Persian Grammar_ was first edited in 1953. The copy I’ve got is a “Student edition” from 1967. I must have bought it some years before the Islamic Revolution (1979) which also brought my Persian studies to a standstill. I am much better off with Persian _dictionaries_.


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## Jocaste

Thanks a lot Spectre scolaire


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## Kraus

Il y a le manuel Assimil aussi (Le Persan - Collection Sans Peine) qui me semble très efficace.


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## Nikola

http://www.easypersian.com/       free lessons
http://members.tripod.com/~shahriar/persian/titlepage.html   free lessons
http://www.eric.ed.gov/ERICDocs/data/ericdocs2sql/content_storage_01/0000019b/80/36/10/e4.pdf
Third one is a free textbook in pdf format


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## Nanon

Hi All,

In addition to Nikola's post - I am also interested in Persian so I browsed the resources posted by Alijsh here in the resources for OL.
It is incredible to see how much material (and most of it seems to be valuable) is available for free!


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## Jocaste

Yep Nanon 
There are really good websites.
I have started with this one http://www.easypersian.com/ which I found in the ressources just after opening the thread ! 
But I was looking for a book because I don't know how much time I'll be able to go on internet.
So thanks a lot everyone


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## shannenms

As a Persian native speaker, I don't know how I can help you, however, these books seem to be helpful to you, at least they are written by the Persians and can be bought worldwide:

Persian Self-Taught
By *Sheykh Hasan*

*Descriptive Grammar of New Persian (German, English & Persian) *
by *Navid Faazel *

*Persian for Beginners *
by: *Iraj Bashiri *

and some other stuffs.

Another tip for the beginners:
Persian dictionaries are all exhaustive and voluminous( about 10~16 volumes), and as far as I have seen them, they are "bad" in pronounciation. You have to strongly consult a native to know the common pronunciation, if you pronounce in a way that these books say, I think you would sound completely being from Afghanistan not from Tehran

Best,


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## Nanon

Jocaste said:


> I have started with this one http://www.easypersian.com/ which I found in the ressources just after opening the thread !


 
Yep Jocaste! I started with this one also, rather useful to start and user-friendly... but I would also prefer another support, just for the same reason.
There is also "Teach yourself modern Persian" by Narguess Farzad. You can order it from the UK. I don't know how good it is, though.

Dear Shannenms, you will certainly be able to help us once we become proficient enough ...

And by the way - *Happy Nowrooz!!!*


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## palomnik

"Teach Yourself Modern Persian" by Farad is quite painless and kind of fun, and maybe because of that it won't advance you very far.  The previous "Teach Yourself" offering, written by John Mace, is really very good, if you can find it; I picked up a copy in 1978 two weeks before I visited Iran and I was amazed at how much I learned in that short time.

Wheeler M. Thackston also has a grammar of Persian on the market (An Introduction to Persian) which is not bad.  I think that Lambton is better, although she can get a bit involved in teaching forms that aren't much in common use any more.

In my opinion, one reason that there is such a volume of good material on Persian is the fact that it is not really a very difficult language to learn; its phonology is not really any more difficult that Spanish, and the grammar is not any more difficult than most western European languages.  The one hurdle to conquer for the westerner is the writing system - which is not really all that bad.  And what a wealth of literature it has!


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## shannenms

Nanon said:


> Dear Shannenms, you will certainly be able to help us once we become proficient enough ...
> And by the way - *Happy Nowrooz!!!*


 
Merci beaucoup
It seems that you are quite aware of the time of greatest Persian feast: Nowrooz e shoma ham pirooz



palomnik said:


> In my opinion, one reason that there is such a volume of good material on Persian is the fact that it is not really a very difficult language to learn; its phonology is not really any more difficult that Spanish, and the grammar is not any more difficult than most western European languages. The one hurdle to conquer for the westerner is the writing system - which is not really all that bad. And what a wealth of literature it has!


 
You are right about phonology. But as far as I have talked to the beginners from other countries, particularly US, to my surprise, all of them pronounced Persian /l/ and /r/ sounds wrong.

As for grammar, Persian grammar is much simpler than German,; Maybe it can be compared with French, but is not as simple as English

Writing Persian alphabet is quite easy,a nd in no time you become master in that, but the real hurdle is to read another person's writing.
Writing is an art in Persia, and there are many systems of "beautiful" writing, which both difficult to read and write for those who are not familiar with that, but once you become familiar with that, you are tempted and encouraged to write it that way yourself.

Sorry for my bad English

Best,


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## Alijsh

shannenms said:


> As for grammar, Persian grammar is much simpler than German,; Maybe it can be compared with French, but is not as simple as English


Are you sure?!!!!!

***
Jocaste: Assimil's "Le persan sans peine" is the best course I have heard of. Even many non-native French speakers choose this book to learn Persian.

French radio of Iran has also a course called "Le Persan sans peine". Please take a look.


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## Nanon

Salam,

Alijsh, thank you so much - I will follow your advice about Assimil!
Thank you also for the IRIB course - I just had a quick look at it, I will add it to my list! However do you know if I am right to assume that there is no audio material available online, or do I need to register?

Shannenms, I am just _a little_ aware - I visited Iran twice, always for work. When I was there for the second time (and hopefully not the last one), my Iranian colleagues told me "Well, it is about time you start learning the language, isn't it?". I took a deep breath and said... "ahem, OK, I will try and get started". And someone replied "Good. We have a lot of fun when foreigners make mistakes in Persian".  However I won't get discouraged even if the grammar is less simple than English - and even if I have a terrible handwriting...


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## shannenms

Nanon said:


> Shannenms, I am just _a little_ aware - I visited Iran twice, always for work. When I was there for the second time (and hopefully not the last one), my Iranian colleagues told me "Well, it is about time you start learning the language, isn't it?". I took a deep breath and said... "ahem, OK, I will try and get started". And someone replied "Good. We have a lot of fun when foreigners make mistakes in Persian".  However I won't get discouraged even if the grammar is less simple than English - and even if I have a terrible handwriting...


 
Dorud!

When I said that Persian is not so simple as English I had in my mind the verb conjugation, which is in English so simple, while in Persian is comparable to French; so, there is nothing to get discouraged by. Your handwriting will improve in no time if you ask a native to check that from time to time. Honestly, my handwriting is so bad that owing to that I got marked down once or twice at university

If I am right about you, you want to learn Persian just to speak it when you are in Iran; if so, you have to really concentrate on pronunciation, because written Persian and spoken Persian sound quite different things to the Persian beginners. That is much more complicated than only saying "chuis" instead of "Je suis" as you say in French, or "innernational" instead of "international" in AE. I hope I have not discouraged you, you can be sure that these problems are solved as soon as you "seriously" get started to learn this "sugar-taste" language

By the way, this book may help you with Persian handwriting:

*Persian Handwriting *
By: *E. H Palmer *

And for speaking:

*Persian: Start Speaking Today *
by: *Charles Berlitz *

Also, don't worry about the mistakes you would do in Persian, because all Persians make many mistakes when they speak, and I have not seen a Persian to speak Persian correctly!!

Best,


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## palomnik

shannenms said:


> By the way, this book may help you with Persian handwriting:
> 
> *Persian Handwriting *
> By: *E. H Palmer *


 
The Palmer book is available for free on the internet archive, at least I believe it's the same book (http://www.archive.org/search.php?query=persian%20palmer%20AND%20mediatype%3Atexts) .  It is a public domain book (Palmer was killed by bedouins in the Sinai in 1882).  

Iranian culture is one of those cultures, like Japan and Russia, about which some foreigners get obsessive, as can be judged by the large number of Western academics that have produced some brilliant works on its art and literature.

I spent a week in Iran in 1978, on board the last US Navy ship to make an official visit to Iran. I regret deeply that as a US citizen it's virtually impossible for me to visit Iran, because it is perhaps the one country I want to visit the most.


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## بوسیدن

I am so glad that I encountered this page.  I was looking for more Persian-learning resources online, and it had been to no avail until I saw this page.  

Like many others in this thread, I have been using Easy Persian.  It's definitely user-friendly, but I wasn't able to find other websites that have additional Persian verbs in the simple present tense.  Especially after the pdf file that was provided, I think that I have found exactly that for which I've been searching.  Thanks to everyone in this thread!


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## timboleicester

palomnik said:


> "Teach Yourself Modern Persian" by Farad is quite painless and kind of fun, and maybe because of that it won't advance you very far. The previous "Teach Yourself" offering, written by John Mace, is really very good, if you can find it; I picked up a copy in 1978 two weeks before I visited Iran and I was amazed at how much I learned in that short time.
> 
> Wheeler M. Thackston also has a grammar of Persian on the market (An Introduction to Persian) which is not bad. I think that Lambton is better, although she can get a bit involved in teaching forms that aren't much in common use any more.
> 
> In my opinion, one reason that there is such a volume of good material on Persian is the fact that it is not really a very difficult language to learn; its phonology is not really any more difficult that Spanish, and the grammar is not any more difficult than most western European languages. The one hurdle to conquer for the westerner is the writing system - which is not really all that bad. And what a wealth of literature it has!


 


Yes I agree I used John Mace's book and loads of Iranian friends.


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## Alijsh

shannenms said:


> When I said that Persian is not so simple as English I had in my mind the verb conjugation, which is in English so simple, while in Persian is comparable to French;


It seems to be off-topic (the topic is about "learning tips") but since the moderators have not deleted your post I can't leave it unanswered. 

I don't think it's fair to compare English and Persian verbal system because they don't have equal features e.g. Persian is a pro-drop language i.e. Persian has different conjugational enclitics for referring to the six persons (1st/2nd/3rd singular/plural) and therefore subject pronouns are not normally used in Persian (pro-drop = pronoun-dropping). In any case, English verbs can have two irregular things (past and past participle) whereas Persian verbs have only one irregular thing (present stem) and you probably know that the number of Persian's common simple verbs is less than the irregular verbs of English.

Verb conjugation is much easier in Persian than in French (especially that French is not a pro-drop language too). All the past and future tenses are conjugated regularly in Persian. It's true that there are irregular present stems but they are the same (invariable, constant) for all the persons and they don't vary as in French.

French: vouloir -> je veux, tu veux, il/elle/on veut, nous voulons, vous voulez, ils/elles veulent
Persian: xwâstan (present stem: xwâh) -> mi-xwâh-am, mi-xwâh-i, mi-xwâh-ad, mi-xwâh-im, mi-xwâh-id, mi-xwâh-and

French: écrire -> je écris, tu écris, il/elle/on écrit, nous écrivons, vous écrivez, ils/elles écrivent
Persian: neveštan (present stem: nevis) -> mi-nevis-am, mi-nevis-i, mi-nevis-ad, mi-nevis-im, mi-nevis-id, mi-nevis-and

***
Anyway, we don't have any "simple" language and the difficulty for learning any language starts from hard. According to FSI, Persian is a category-II language for English speakers (see here. This page also says: Becoming fluent in a language is no walk in the park).



Nanon said:


> Salam,
> 
> Alijsh, thank you so much - I will follow your advice about Assimil!
> Thank you also for the IRIB course - I just had a quick look at it, I will add it to my list! However do you know if I am right to assume that there is no audio material available online, or do I need to register?


Salâm. You're welcome. Yes, it doesn't seem to provide audio materials but I think this program is still on the air and if you listen to the radio program you can have the audio of the new lessons. But anyway, let me see if they have an archive of the broadcast(ed) programs somewhere else.



Nanon said:


> However I won't get discouraged even if the grammar is less simple than English - and even if I have a terrible handwriting...


The grammar of English is by no means simple. It's quite tricky. I can assure you that Persian grammar is less hard than English.


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## James Bates

I learned Persian using Assimil le persan sans peine, along with Lambton and Thackston for reference. The Assimil courses are simply amazing, and if I hadn't already known French I would have learned it just to be able to use Assimil's Persian course. I am currently translating the course for a friend of mine who doesn't know French. I even learned Italian, Russian, Turkish, Indonesian, Latin, Chinese, and Sanskrit using Assimil. Sadly, only the Russian and Chinese courses have been translated into English. Fortunately, Assimil has a French course for English-speakers.


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## lalsingh

I've been using this 
http://www.laits.utexas.edu/persian_teaching_resources/

Has audio, video and downloadable PDF versions of the text books.


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