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 Language Learning Forum : Language Programs, Books & Tapes Post Reply
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lumbercis
Newbie
United States
Joined 5562 days ago

3 posts - 4 votes

 
 Message 9 of 30
03 March 2009 at 4:47am | IP Logged 
I did a little hunting around and came to the conclusion that there really aren't any GOOD persian courses out there, but a succession of okay ones.

Here are some that I am thinking about going with that didn't seem totally bad and had at least some decent reviews.


http://www.amazon.com/Modern-Persian-Teach-Yourself-John/dp/ 0844238155/ref=sr_1_2?ie=UTF8&s=books&qid=1236050381&sr=1-2
This is an old version of "Teach Yourself Persian" written by Mace in 1964. Lauded mostly for it's presentation of the written language. I'll probably pick up a copy of this for the writing part if nothing else. Also, earlier reprints are the same text but can be had for pennies.

http://www.amazon.com/Farsi-World-Languages-Living-Language/ dp/1400023475/ref=pd_bbs_sr_9?ie=UTF8&s=books&qid=1236048235 &sr=8-9
This one hasn't been out that long, but it's one of the most recent, so I'll probably try it out as well.

http://www.amazon.com/Farsi-Persian-Understand-Pimsleur-Schu sters/dp/0743544838/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&s=books&qid=123605170 2&sr=1-1
I'm a big Pimsleur fan so will proabably start with this 30-lesson set (all they have unfortunately). Anyone know where I can download it cheaper than Amazon?

I've also seen references to an FSI course floating around but can't seem to find anywhere to get a complete copy. I'm a DLI graduate so I'm used to the presentation anyway. Some help locating a source for this would be appreciated.


I found a couple software courses that were both pretty new. Anyone have any reviews of these (or the same series in a different language?)
http://www.amazon.com/EuroTalk-Interactive-Learn-Farsi-Persi an/dp/B00117SUJY/ref=sr_1_12?ie=UTF8&s=software&qid=12360482 35&sr=8-12

http://www.amazon.com/Persian-Tutor-Farsi-Language-Iran/dp/B 0002BVESO/ref=sr_1_15?ie=UTF8&s=software&qid=1236048235&sr=8 -15

Thanks for everyone's help so far.

J.
2 persons have voted this message useful



geirtbr
Groupie
Norway
Joined 6438 days ago

83 posts - 90 votes 
Speaks: Norwegian*
Studies: Russian

 
 Message 11 of 30
06 July 2010 at 10:05pm | IP Logged 
I will provide a couple of references that I find good.

First, "Persian for foreigners"
http://www.amazon.com/PERSIAN-LESSONS-FOREIGNERS-Elementary- Course/dp/B000PDJPK8
- This was one of the best intro-books in English i could find. It is quite systematic and grammatically oriented,
much better than Teach Yourself, which i think is now so organised. + found the audio at University of
Washington pages.

then
Behzad & Divshali "Sprachkurs persisch", alefba verlag. Also introduction, with a lot of audio. - Both of the books
are of the kind where nearly everything is in persian, with accompanying vocabulary.


1 person has voted this message useful



Remy
Newbie
United Kingdom
Joined 5326 days ago

10 posts - 13 votes

 
 Message 13 of 30
07 July 2010 at 10:50pm | IP Logged 
Modern Persian by Simin Abrahams. By far the best book for learning Persian from scratch. I would have given up in
the beginning without this book.

Edited by Remy on 07 July 2010 at 10:51pm

1 person has voted this message useful



maecenas
Diglot
Newbie
United States
Joined 5330 days ago

21 posts - 44 votes
Speaks: English*, Italian
Studies: French, Portuguese, Persian

 
 Message 14 of 30
10 July 2010 at 1:21am | IP Logged 
I've just recently started studying persian seriously, but in the leadup to that I purchased Teach Yourself Modern Persian, Living Language Farsi, and Thackson's an Introduction to Persian. Additionally, I've gone through one of the pimsleur 30-lesson courses (I'll explain why this is important in a second).

After sitting down and reading through the introductions and first chapters of the books, I've decided to use Living Language as my primary course. Not that I won't consult the other ones, but my current plan is to methodically work through LL, and then go through the others later to see what other information they provide. My suspicion is that Teach Yourself will not offer much extra, but that Thackson's persian, given its more academic appearance, might be useful after I have a solid base in the language.

Why did I choose living language? First, as I mentioned, Thackson is too academic. Not that this doesn't have its place, but it's not for me right now, and there are no accompanying audio materials. Compared to Teach yourself, the quantity and quality of the audio materials that come with Living Language are better.

Finally, there's one element that sealed the deal for me: Living language uses the informal form early in the 2nd chapter. This is just a quirky pet-peeve I have with many language courses. In 30 lessons of pimsleur (15 hours!) they never once mention the informal. Michel Thomas, for example, also never mentions the informal. This always bugs me- I understand the necessity to speak formally, but you also sound like an idiot if you can speak informally with people you become friends with. To me this is just a critical part of the language, so any course that introduces it early gets extra points from me (in my experience, Assimil also does this well).

I'm only a few chapters into the living language course, and can only really offer some very high level impressions: I like it, and the chapters are LONG. About 6 sections in each chapter, and they take me about 1.5 hours to work through methodically. The audio is well produced, they speak slowly, but the accents are good (in as much as I can tell, having gone through pimsleur). The have an interesting setup with 3 discs for use with the book, and 3 discs that are meant to be used away from the book, such as in your car, that also align to the chapters. There's really not much difference between the two sets besides the fact that the "independent" discs have a bit more structure in their presentation.

Hope this helps a bit, just thought I'd give my impression, seeing as how I haven't seen any word from anyone else who's actually used the Living Language course at all.
7 persons have voted this message useful



liddytime
Pentaglot
Senior Member
United States
mainlymagyar.wordpre
Joined 6010 days ago

693 posts - 1328 votes 
Speaks: English*, Spanish, Italian, Portuguese, Galician
Studies: Hungarian, Vietnamese, Modern Hebrew, Norwegian, Persian, Arabic (Written)

 
 Message 16 of 30
10 July 2010 at 7:33pm | IP Logged 
I uploaded the DLI Persian Course a while back:

Persian/Farsi audio: the pdfs are available on ERIC

http://rapidshare.com/files/273982453/PersianFarsiDLI.zip.00 1
http://rapidshare.com/files/274009347/PersianFarsiDLI.zip.00 2
http://rapidshare.com/files/274034256/PersianFarsiDLI.zip.00 3

There is no audio from book 1 ( I don't think there ever was) so if you are starting from scratch you may want to
start with one of the other courses first.   The sound quality is pretty poor but comprehensible.

The FSI Persian basic course (which I strongly believe is public domain) is here

Links:

Audio:

http://rapidshare.com/files/376878167/uz_sppe_au.part1.rar
http://rapidshare.com/files/376895312/uz_sppe_au.part2.rar
http://rapidshare.com/files/376915984/uz_sppe_au.part3.rar
http://rapidshare.com/files/376931959/uz_sppe_au.part4.rar

Book:

http://www.eric.ed.gov/ERICWebPortal/contentdelivery/servlet /ERICServlet?accno=ED053628

Password (if needed): uztranslations


Both courses are pretty good.


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