Élan Senior Member United States Joined 5442 days ago 165 posts - 211 votes Speaks: English* Studies: Persian
| Message 9 of 55 08 December 2013 at 3:43pm | IP Logged |
jamesleecoleman wrote:
There were a few websites that did conjugations for Farsi verbs but I guess they got
taken down. |
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Have you tried this site? It's the first place I go when I need help with
verb conjugations. This site also has the verb conjugator and other Persian resources in Spanish, German, French,
Italian, and Portuguese.
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druckfehler Triglot Senior Member Germany Joined 4866 days ago 1181 posts - 1912 votes Speaks: German*, EnglishC2, Korean Studies: Persian
| Message 10 of 55 10 December 2013 at 12:26am | IP Logged |
jamesleecoleman wrote:
I'm still trying to learn the alphabet!!! It's not sticking to me. |
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Although I was lucky to know the concept of not writing certain vowels from Hebrew script, the alphabet was definitely a hurdle for me as well. I was pretty intimidated by it in the beginning and it took me some time to actually see letters and not just random curls and dots. Actually, the most confusing thing for me was that the position of a single dot changes determines which letter you're reading...
But I can assure you that it gets easier. I still have trouble with less common letters, but I pretty much know the common ones. I think it helps to read lots of words that you know from their sound or romanised versions. Trying to read a lot helped me internalise the alphabet better, both in Persian and Korean.
I also started to learn the alphabet from easypersian and I liked his reading exercises, but that site was not thorough enough to really make me understand how the letters are connected, etc. Maybe trying another resource would be a good idea.
Élan wrote:
jamesleecoleman wrote:
There were a few websites that did conjugations for Farsi verbs but I guess they got taken down. |
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Have you tried this site? |
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There's also this List of Persian Verbs Conjugated.
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jamesleecoleman Newbie United States Joined 4485 days ago 38 posts - 52 votes Studies: Russian, Persian
| Message 11 of 55 10 December 2013 at 1:38am | IP Logged |
Thanks Élan!
Druckfehler: Learning the alphabet for Hebrew was way easier ;) I practice typing the words out to help me get a better understanding how each word that I'm learning is written and also which letter is being used. Sometimes it's difficult to do it like that but it has really helped me a lot. I try to read the words with the transliterations with them so I can get a better idea of which letter is which for the words that I don't know in case I haven't seen the different shape of a certain letter often. Thanks for the website!
Zireael:
I'll have to check it out. It would be nice if more games included different languages during game play. I'm not talking about games like Modern Warfare or Splinter Cell. Maybe like Super Mario.
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adm.tres Diglot Newbie Mexico Joined 4104 days ago 4 posts - 11 votes Speaks: Spanish*, English Studies: Mandarin
| Message 12 of 55 10 December 2013 at 2:11pm | IP Logged |
Some websites that you might find interesting:
http://www.nyu.edu/pages/gsasweb/dept/mideast/virtualpersian /index.html
http://www.angelfire.com/rnb/bashiri/Lessons/PfBindex.html
http://www.laits.utexas.edu/persian_teaching_resources/
http://persianlanguageonline.com/
http://persian-language.com/learning-list.html
http://www.princeton.edu/~plbrett/persian/
http://wte.dliflc.edu/search.aspx
http://persian.nmelrc.org/
http://www.radiocp.com/?subject=book&lang=en
I'm starting with Persian myself, good luck!
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druckfehler Triglot Senior Member Germany Joined 4866 days ago 1181 posts - 1912 votes Speaks: German*, EnglishC2, Korean Studies: Persian
| Message 13 of 55 11 December 2013 at 6:07pm | IP Logged |
Wow, thanks for the links, adm.tres! I knew most of them already, but it seems like I missed a couple of real gems! I'm especially happy that you posted persian-language.com. I had downloaded the pdf files for the lessons, but had no idea where I got them from and couldn't find the audio. It looks like a really good course. The audio books Radio College Park will also come in handy.
I wish you the best of luck for your Persian journey! Keep us updated on your progress! If you like the forums and are thinking about making a study log, how about joining our TAC team for Persian? The TAC ("Total Annihilation Challenge") means that you keep a log and encourage the people on your team to keep studying throughout one year. You choose your own goals and study methods. It's a good way to stay motivated and not feel like you're the only person in the world studying your language.
Edited by druckfehler on 11 December 2013 at 6:18pm
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druckfehler Triglot Senior Member Germany Joined 4866 days ago 1181 posts - 1912 votes Speaks: German*, EnglishC2, Korean Studies: Persian
| Message 14 of 55 13 December 2013 at 4:38pm | IP Logged |
I just couldn't stop looking at all those study materials and kept thinking about how to combine them - so I have already come up with my personal master plan curriculum. I'll post the ideas behind it now and the actual plan a little later.
I'm going to rely on two basic convictions I came up with during studying Korean. One is that it is important to overlearn if I not only want to gain some passive awareness of the language but instead want to be able to use it actively. I self-studied Korean and asked my tandem partners about different ways of formulating things while still attending a course that mostly meant repetition for me. I was often bored at the time, but looking back, it was really beneficial to repeat the same concepts several times. I read an article about overlearning which makes a lot of sense to me:
Jenkins wrote:
Repeating is normally a part of a language learning program. Some learners don't repeat enough. We tend to get to the level of awareness, then we get tired of what we are practicing. Awareness is the level where we can recognize the phrase or pattern or word sequence. But to get to the point of really knowing (commanding automatically) that bit of language, the learner must push on to the level of overlearning.
When you learn something, then go on to the next something, you usually have trouble recalling that first something on demand. You learn one thing (or get correction on it), then go on to the other, stringing it out instead of building it up. You have to struggle, or practice some more each time you need that item you learned only to the level of awareness. |
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For this reason I'm happy to have a lot of study materials to choose from which all cover the basics (and beyond) in Persian. I will work with a couple of sources at a time and then move on to other materials in the next step. Thus I'll gradually progress in all my materials while getting a lot of repetition through different teaching approaches.
The second thing I noticed is that listening to the same sentences over and over makes it much easier for me to reliably remember words. It also boosts my speaking skills and helps me to sound more natural and less like a struggling language learner (I still struggle enough, though!). Parts of sentences and ways of formulating certain concepts will stick in my memory for a long time. That's why Anki will play a central role throughout all of the steps. I'm going to take audio sentences with new words and useful expressions from all my sources and drill them into my head ad nauseum. I'll be muttering incoherent bits and pieces of Persian under my breath every time I take a shower or wait for a bus...
Edited by druckfehler on 13 December 2013 at 4:39pm
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druckfehler Triglot Senior Member Germany Joined 4866 days ago 1181 posts - 1912 votes Speaks: German*, EnglishC2, Korean Studies: Persian
| Message 15 of 55 13 December 2013 at 5:46pm | IP Logged |
Study Plan: Step 1
Chai and Conversation until lesson 20 ✓
This podcast is a fun way to start getting a feel for Persian. Unlike a lot of the material out there it teaches colloquial speech and the pace is very comfortable. The first 20 lessons cover basic conversational topics - after those you'll be able introduce yourself.
I'll listen to each lesson several times and then cut audio sentences for my Anki cards. The transcripts are done in roman letters and only available if you pay, so I see this as an opportunity to practice some dictation.
Assimil: Le Persan Sans Peine until lesson 21 ✓
Update I decided to study up to L28 for Step 1, after that the difficulty increases ✓
A very kind member of HTLAL gifted me with Anki audio cards of the Assimil dialogues, so I decided to include it in my resources. I must say, I now understand its popularity. It looks fun, even though it's only available in French for Persian and I probably understand more Persian than French…
Because of the French problem, I'm only going to read through the Persian parts, look up unknown words and then add the dialogues to the audio sentence cards I'm reviewing.
Listening casually to book2
Update I gave up on this because the audio sounds too artificial
This website has a program of 100 lessons consisting of audio sentences for lots of languages. They probably cover all A1-A2 topics, introducing words and basic sentences first in your native language and then in your target language. The good thing: You can download the sound files for free.
I plan to put these files on my mp3 player and listen to them in dead time. I'll probably gradually use the German sentence as a prompt to see if I have memorised the Persian ones. Useful and challenging sentences will get their place in my audio card Anki deck.
Persian Verbs
Update I decided to postpone this, seems more beneficial at a later stage
This is something I want to keep up throughout all of the steps. Because verbs are always a special problem for me, I'm committing to studying 3 Persian verbs per week. The slightly confusing thing about Persian is that there are 2 verb stems that must be memorised for each verb. The colloquial versions can also be different. I'll study with conjugation tables like this one, starting with the most common verbs. I'll try to cover those that feature in the other materials I study throughout the week.
Conversation with Reza ✓
Of course I'm going to keep saying bits and pieces I have learned to my boyfriend. I regularly hear him talk Persian and when some word stands out for me, because I'v heard it a lot, I ask what it means. I also sometimes ask for translations of German words and sentences. It's a fun, almost effortless way of learning. Once I start studying I will probably try out saying a lot of the new things I'm learning.
Edited by druckfehler on 28 May 2014 at 6:46pm
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Élan Senior Member United States Joined 5442 days ago 165 posts - 211 votes Speaks: English* Studies: Persian
| Message 16 of 55 20 December 2013 at 2:17am | IP Logged |
Oooh, is there anyway the rest of us can get those Anki audio cards for Assimil?
It's great that you're relying on so many free web resources. I always find myself going back to textbooks in the end.
I'm working on a study plan myself and I know I also need to focus on verbs. That's definitely my "lazy spot" where I
need improvement.
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