Customer Reviews

English-Dari Phrasebook for Aid Workers

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I am currently taking a Dari language class with an instructor who is from Afghanistan and speaks Dari, Pashto, English, and a number of other languages. I've used the book a number of times to verify how good it is before I try and use it in Afghanistan. While much of it has been fairly accurate, I was rather amused when my attempt to say "I am confused" was in the book as "I am a car" in Dari. Some of the translations in the book are not Dari, but a combination of Pashto, Persian, Urdu and Arabic. Since it doesn't tell you about that, I recommend you tread carefully when using it. Another issue is that it doesn't have any way to go from Dari to English, so it is of no help when trying to understand what someone wants you to do.
The book itself is fairly usable, with words and phrases set up in a dictionary format. If you want to say something, you just look for the key word and scan through to find the sentence you are looking for. Some of pronunciation guides are a little different than I would use, but are good enough to make yourself understood.

This is a perfect combination of a dictionary and phrasebook. Phrases are arranged under word headings, examples are given in both Persian script and transliteration. So you can simply find the key word (in English) of the sentence you want to say, then you probably find the type of sentence you need listed under the word. It is a very compact and comprehensive dictionary and phrasebook. However, an ideal user, who can make the most out of the book, should already have some knowledge of Dari/Persian/Tajiki.

User should also note that the language used in this book is written Dari, so it may not be the kind of Dari one hear the Afghans speaking. A serious learner should have some understanding of phonological and morphological difference between written and colloquial Dari. Thus this book is recommended to be used together with Eugene Glassman's Conversational Dari (with audio CDs) [...]

This book is excellent and should probably be the first one to get if you are heading to Dari-speaking Afghanistan. The vocabulary is limited to some extent, but the explanations and definitions are the best I've yet encountered in a English-Dari dictionary. The phrases included also seem well thought out and pertinent.

This book was the perfect thing for my daughter who is stationed in Afghanistan. Though she had a basic course in Dari prior to arriving overseas, the English-Dari Phrasebook for Aid Workers was an added benefit.

This is a good book for learning phrases. The vocabulary is not as extensive as a straightforward dictionary but I am able to converse much better using the help of these phrases.

Along with Conversational Dari by Eugene Glassman, this is the best Dari reference available for Military Personnel and Expatriates working in both the Tajik/Hazara and urban areas of Afghanistan. The Dari language is not a very difficult language to learn compared to Arabic, Russian, or Chinese and this phrasebook helps unlock the secret to speaking Dari. It not only works as a dictionary, but also gives examples of how each word is used properly. I highly recommend this book and have purchased several copies myself for when my current one wears down from flipping pages during meetings and killing mosquitoes in my room.