Learning Persian

Two weeks ago, I found an audio-only Farsi Pimsleur Program in our local library. Pimsleur method is a method that builds vocabulary in terms of blocks, quite literally so. Words are introduced, used frequently, and the words learned previously learned are brought in randomly. The approach helps retention, and with the audio you start feeling comfortable with the sound of the language and learn to speak simple phrases and sentences.

I finished the 4 CDs with about 4 hours of content during my commute in one week. It was fun, and now I have a couple of books to learn the language more formally as well. In 2009, I taught myself to read the Perso-Arabic script, so I don't have to learn the script (which would have made learning Persian even more daunting).

Persian seems to be odd in the sense that it is literally unchanged since the 11th century and of course, is still a living language. The language seems to be easy in the beginning, but it is a very unique language that linguists are still trying to figure out parts of Persian language and debating the mechanisms! I probably already know a thousand Persian words because I know Urdu, though these would not be cognates as the Persian sound register and intonation is different from the Hindi/Urdu ones.

I live in Southern California which has a lot of Iranian-Americans. In fact, one half-Iranian taxi driver was joking that in Southern California, you have to say bebakhshid if you hit a curb. The italicized words means excuse me in Persian. This also allows me to practice my newly learned Persian on native speakers, which I have already done. Yes, I am shameless. You need to be shameless if you want to learn a foreign language.

I love learning new languages. I would have been a linguist if I had the choice and knew what I do now. So far, I have found German to be the hardest language to learn, and I never got beyond 100 pictographs in Chinese. Too bad I have a daytime job and other interests!