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Learning Persian without Arabic? | ||
Tags: Farsi/Persian | Arabic | ||
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 Language Learning Forum : Specific Languages |  | |
| hrhenry Octoglot Senior Member United States languagehopper.blogs Joined 5134 days ago 1871 posts - 3642 votes  Speaks: English*, SpanishC2, ItalianC2, Norwegian, Catalan, Galician, Turkish, Portuguese Studies: Polish, Indonesian, Ojibwe | Message 25 of 35 31 December 2011 at 6:57pm | IP Logged | |||||
Since 1979. R. == 1 person has voted this message useful | ||||||
| Lucky Charms Diglot Senior Member Japan lapacifica.net Joined 6953 days ago 752 posts - 1711 votes Speaks: English*, Japanese Studies: German, Spanish | Message 26 of 35 03 January 2012 at 12:09pm | IP Logged | |||||
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A few contributors to this thread have suggested that learners of Persian don't need to
learn Arabic first as a prerequisite, but should familiarize themselves with some grammatical features of Arabic as they go along. Can anyone recommend some resources they've used to this end? Edited by Lucky Charms on 03 January 2012 at 12:10pm 2 persons have voted this message useful | ||||||
| Wulf Newbie United States traditionalisth Joined 4578 days ago 10 posts - 17 votes Speaks: English* Studies: Persian | Message 28 of 35 16 June 2012 at 10:59pm | IP Logged | |||||
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From what I've seen, any in-depth Persian grammar will give you all you need. John Mace's Persian Grammar for Reference and Revision does a good job.
I might also point out something which no-one else seems to have done, which is that so far, not a single poster who has suggested that you will need more than a cursory knowledge of Arabic borrowings actually speaks or studies Persian or Arabic. One of them doesn't even realize that Narguess Farzad is a woman, not a man. Edited by Wulf on 16 June 2012 at 11:48pm 2 persons have voted this message useful | ||||||
| sipes23 Diglot Senior Member United States pluteopleno.com/wprs Joined 4874 days ago 134 posts - 235 votes Speaks: English*, Latin Studies: Spanish, Ancient Greek, Persian | Message 29 of 35 17 June 2012 at 8:21pm | IP Logged | |||||
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I'm not super deep into Persian, but I'd say that zero knowledge of Arabic is necessary.
The more I learn, the more it looks like Spanish without the stuff that makes Spanish hard. No gender for one. No that it doesn't have its challenges. I emphasize that I'm not expert yet, but I would suggest that a knowledge of Ancient Greek would be just as useful. Or am I just being a crank? 1 person has voted this message useful | ||||||
| Jappy58 Bilingual Super Polyglot Senior Member United States Joined 4642 days ago 200 posts - 413 votes Speaks: Spanish*, Guarani*, Arabic (Levantine), Arabic (Egyptian), Arabic (Maghribi), Arabic (Written), French, English, Persian, Quechua, Portuguese Studies: Modern Hebrew | Message 30 of 35 17 June 2012 at 10:44pm | IP Logged | |||||
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After having studied Arabic intensely, and then focusing on Persian years ago for some years as well, I absolutely believe that you do not need a strong command of Arabic in order to get deep into Persian.
Does Persian borrow a lot from Arabic, lexically speaking? Yes, but as someone earlier stated, the words that sound similar often having different meanings. In all, the lexical benefits of learning Arabic before Persian can definitely help, but not to the extent where it has more than a marginal effect. Grammatically speaking, both similarities and differences are definitely there, but most certainly not to the point where knowing Arabic is a NEED for gaining a strong ground in Persian. Definitely, it may be useful for more religious texts, but beyond that, I don't see what the author meant with her statement. Many older Persian literature - as mentioned earlier by others - tends to display less influence from Arabic. In all, I think my knowledge of Arabic certainly helped in some ways, but it's not a need for studying Persian. I've met three others who've learned Persian quite well and did not study Arabic at all or until later. Perhaps it's not a large sample, but it's definitely possible. 3 persons have voted this message useful | ||||||
| aldous Diglot Groupie United States Joined 5246 days ago 73 posts - 174 votes Speaks: English*, French | Message 31 of 35 24 June 2012 at 12:02am | IP Logged | |||||
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I didn't see this thread when it reactivated last December.
It looks like there's been some misunderstanding. Neither the author quoted in the OP, nor anyone in this thread, said you have to know Arabic to be good at Persian.
What Lucky Charms said. Please note that this is not the same as saying you have to know Arabic. Just be familiar with some grammatical features. You can accomplish this in at most a few hours, if you already have a grounding in Persian. No one's saying you have to take four years of Arabic and do six months of immersion in Saudi Arabia before you can order kebab at a Persian restaurant.
Any descriptive grammar of Persian will include the Arabic element. That's all you need. However, neither of the two grammars I'm familiar with - Mace, Persian grammar for reference and revision, and Lambton, Persian grammar - do a great job of explaining the Arabic parts of the language. Mace is too succinct and Lambton is way too detailed. There are other grammars out there that might do a better job. I'd suggest looking at all of them, including Mace and Lambton, to see which style works best for you. One other option would be to read over some parts of Arabic Verbs and Essentials of Grammar. Not the whole book. There's no need to learn how to conjugate an Arabic verb, for example. But to me the following sections tend to be clearer and simpler to understand than what's found in either Mace or Lambton, and I think it'd be a useful supplement to them. I'd read the following: 1. The Arabic root system 7. Forms of the verb: introduction 16. Verbal nouns & other verbal constructions 20. The article and personal pronouns (just read about the article and skip the pronouns) 25. Plurals 26. Describing possession (just the part about the idafa construction, not to be confused with Persian's ezafe) That covers most of the Arabic grammar you'll come across in less than 20 pages. The example sentences in these sections go beyond what you need as a Persian learner, but the explanation of each form is, in my opinion, simple and clear. 2 persons have voted this message useful | ||||||
| Asperger-glot Diglot Newbie Denmark Joined 4550 days ago 16 posts - 22 votes Speaks: Danish*, English Studies: Dutch, Serbo-Croatian, Persian, Arabic (classical), Pashto, Polish, Bulgarian, Russian, Turkish Studies: Mandarin, Romanian, French | Message 32 of 35 07 July 2012 at 4:07pm | IP Logged | |||||
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I'm on level A2 in modern standard arabic, that really helps me a lot in learning farsi.
But I dont think it's a must to know arabic in order to learn farsi, only an advantage. Farsi is an indoeuropean language, it is therefore easier to learn than arabic (if of course your mothertongue is also a indoeuropean language) 1 person has voted this message useful |
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