Persian

**Persian** is an Indo-European language, and is an official language of Iran, Afghanistan and Tajikistan. It is also spoken by many people in Pakistan, Uzbekistan,Azerbaijan, immigrants from Central Asia in Russia, and in other neighbouring countries. Persian was also taught as a second language in schools in Pakistan until 2006. In the past, many of these places were parts of the **Achaemenid Empire.**

Persian has many dialects. The Persian language is officially called Farsi in Iran, Dari in Afghanistan, and Tajik in Tajikistan. The literary language of each of these countries is a little different, but people from each country can understand each other when they have a conversation. It has taken on many French words in Iran, and many Russian words in Tajikistan.

The Persian alphabet used in Iran and Afghanistan is very similar to the Arabic one, but the language is in a different family than Arabic, so their vocabulary and grammar are very different. Since the 1930's, in countries which used to be in the USSR, such as Tajikistan and Uzbekistan, Persian is usually written in variants of the Cyrillic alphabet. In the past, all Persian speakers used the one based on Arabic.

## **Resources**

### **Rosetta Stone**

* 3 levels available
* Recommended as a beginning tool
* **Strongly not recommended to be used as the only tool.**
* Covers pronounciation, reading, listening, vocabulary, writing.
* Very poor for grammar.
* Easy to use. Shouldn't take more than an hour to set up and begin using.
* More expensive than it's worth. Thank you based internet!

### **Pimsleur**

* 3 levels available with 30 total lessons.
* Recommended as a learning tool.
* **Strongly not recommended to be used as the only tool.**
* Covers mainly speaking and being able to hold a conversation.
* Easy to use, just open the audio file and repeat.
* Much more expensive than it's worth. Thank you based internet!

### Easy Persian

* 75 quick lessons
* Starts with the alphabet.
* Includes grammar lessons
* Includes listening and reading drills.
* **FREE!!!**

### **Books and PDF** **files**

Persian Basic Course Units 1-12

Much of the classical and modern (شعر نو) poems of Persian language can be find in this website Ganjoor. I recommend going through modern poets such as شاملو and نیما یوشیج since they use less obscure Arabic words and they are more close to the modern Persian.

Ministry of education

The official website of Ministry of Education. You can download all the books from first grade to 12th grade for free. You can also choose the version(every year the books get edited. The changes can be from typos to rewritten books). This way you can have resources in different topics.

https://www.storybookscanada.ca/stories/fa/

### **News**

Radio Farda Basically a cold war relic United States government-funded news organization that transmitted radio to the former USSR and satelite states, later expanded to Nations like Iraq, Iran and Afghanistan.

BBC Farsi

### **Videos**

https://langmedia.fivecolleges.edu/culturetalk/iran

Persian fairy tales (childrens stories)

Mashidtopia (Vlogs from London)

BaziCenter (gaming)

jimmyzirakJP1984(iranian living in japan, though I personally only enjoy a small amount of his videos)

Hamayon Afghan (Dari, Visiting various places in Afghanistan. Don't be put off by dari content, the difference negligible)

Afghanistan today (Dari, visiting cities in afghanistan)

ZoomitTV (tech, smarthpones)

Ehsan Mansoori (movie/tv show reviews)

Yalda's journey (vlog)

Tootafghanistan (dari, all kinds of stuff)

### **Movies**

Subtitles

* Subscene
* Findsubtitles
* (add more if you know them)

Movies

* Much of the renowned works of Abbas Kiarostami such as Close-Up and Taste of Cherry. His works can be found in Youtube with English subtitles but I don't recommend them because of the poor quality. Torrent the films Instead.

### **Anime/cartoons (Persian dubs)**

Many are to be found on Aparat, the Persian YouTube clone.

* Baab Esfanji (Spongebob)

### **Brotips:**

* If you have experience learning this language please share it, it's greatly appreciated.
* Find a native speaker to practice with! Persian speakers are very eager to help new learners.