Most Helpful Customer Reviews
29 of 30 people found the following review helpful:
4.0 out of 5 stars
A good introductory Persian lesson book., August 18, 2002
This review is from: Colloquial Persian The Complete Course for Beginners (With cassette) (Colloquial Series) (Paperback)
This is better than Thackston's "An Introduction to Persian", which can be forbidding for beginners. It differs from Thackston in that it's emphasis is on spoken Persian rather than written Persian. However, having said that, neither book really does much to teach you how to read or write. They should be viewed more as refreshers and practice guides. Also, Rafiee's book comes with a key to the exercises and a cassette to aid in pronunciation, which Thackston's book lacks.
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24 of 26 people found the following review helpful:
2.0 out of 5 stars
A GOOD IDEA BUT POORLY DONE, October 12, 2002
This review is from: Colloquial Persian The Complete Course for Beginners (With cassette) (Colloquial Series) (Paperback)
After having bought several Persian self help books(most were of the literary form of Persian), this was a welcome attempt to fill the gap with the colloquial form. The only other colloquial book I have seen of merit is also from Rutledge publishers, but writen in roman transliteration. However, this new book written with Farsi script sadly falls into the same traps as many other language self help books, by constantly introducing new grammatical forms and vocabulary before explaining them; causing the reader to stop and try to look up an explaination somewhere else in the book- very frustrating. Also, it give too much emphasis on slangy social etiquette forms early in the book used in meeting, greeting, introductions, etc. which also create frustrations when an adult learner tries to analize their structures grammatically. Also, the vocabulary at end of book is not consistant with the words given in exercises, especially the English-Persian half. Tapes are adecuate, thank goodness, and the whole set being the only "game in town"(using Farsi script colloquially),gives the nod to this purchase until someone else comes alone with a better version.
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19 of 21 people found the following review helpful:
4.0 out of 5 stars
pretty good introduction, February 11, 2004
This review is from: Colloquial Persian The Complete Course for Beginners (With cassette) (Colloquial Series) (Paperback)
this is a decent introduction to spoken and written modern Farsi. I really did like it. My two points of contention is that the written, atleast in the beginning and with the vocabulary does NOT include the vowel marks, i felt it would be more useful if all vocab and sentences in the first few chapters utilized vowel marks. makes life a tad bit easier. I ended up not even focusing on the written and JUST used the book for the spoken my other point of contention is that
they use the letter "x" for the "kh" sound, which is fairly gutterial...i felt it was alittle confusing. This book teaches you both the polite spoken based more on the written (people will think ur really cute!) and slowly introduces alittle of the actual way its spoken (sound changes and whatnot) but overall a really good book and introduction
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