Farsi Persian, Comprehensive: Learn to Speak and Understand Farsi Persian with Pimsleur Language Programs [Audiobook, Unabridged] [Audio CD]

Pimsleur (Author)

Book Description

Publication Date: December 5, 2005 | ISBN-10: 0743544838 | ISBN-13: 978-0743544832 | Edition: Unabridged

Persian is the official language of Iran, Afghanistan, and Tajikistan. Persian has three major dialects: Farsi (spoken in Iran), Dari (spoken in Afghanistan), and Tajik (spoken in Tajikistan). Pimsleur's Farsi teaches Persian as spoken in Iran.

This Comprehensive course includes 30 lessons of essential grammar and vocabulary -- 16 hours of real-life spoken practice sessions -- plus an introduction to reading. Upon completion of this program, you will have functional spoken proficiency with the most-frequently-used vocabulary and grammatical structures.

• In the first 10 lessons, you’ll cover the basics: saying hello, asking for or giving information, scheduling a meal or a meeting, asking for or giving basic directions, and much more. You’ll be able to handle minimum courtesy requirements, understand much of what you hear, and be understood at a beginning level, but with nearnative pronunciation skills.
• In the next 10 lessons, you’ll build on what you’ve learned. Expand your menu, increase your scheduling abilities from general to specific, start to deal with currency and exchanging money, refine your conversations and add over a hundred new vocabulary items. You’ll understand more of what you hear, and be able to participate with speech that is smoother and more confident.
• In the final 10 lessons, you’ll be speaking and understanding at an intermediate level. In this phase, more directions are given in the target language, which moves your learning to a whole new plane. Lessons include shopping, visiting friends, going to a restaurant, plans for the evening, car trips, and talking about family. You’ll be able to speak comfortably about things that happened in the past and make plans for the future.

Reading Lessons are included at the end of Unit 30 to provide you with an introduction to reading the Farsi alphabet. These lessons, which total about one hour, are designed to teach you to sound out words with correct pronunciation and accent. A Reading Booklet to be used with the audio lessons is also included in PDF format.

Editorial Reviews

About the Author

Dr. Paul Pimsleur devoted his life to language teaching and testing and was one of the world’s leading experts in applied linguistics. After years of experience and research, Dr. Pimsleur developed The Pimsleur Method based on two key principles:  the Principle of Anticipation and a scientific principle of memory training that he called “Graduated Interval Recall.”  This Method has been applied to the many levels and languages of the Pimsleur Programs.

Product Details

• Audio CD
• Publisher: Pimsleur; Unabridged edition (December 5, 2005)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0743544838
• ISBN-13: 978-0743544832
• Product Dimensions: 13.2 x 11.9 x 2 inches
• Shipping Weight: 2.2 pounds (View shipping rates and policies)
• Average Customer Review: 4.1 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (15 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #841,494 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

44 of 44 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars I love it, but it's not for everyone!!!, May 25, 2005

By 

Anita Poole (Atlanta, GA USA) - See all my reviews
(REAL NAME)   

This review is from: Farsi (Audio CD)

This set of CDs or tapes will get you started in basic Farsi. The teaching principle is sound linguistically in that it offers ample opportunity to repeat words in different contexts and teaches grammar by example in a transformational setting. However, if what you are looking for is a long list of grammatical constructions and explanations or vocabulary lists, this is not for you. You will learn basic greetings, how to ask for directions, and how to invite someone to go shopping or out to eat, as well as proper forms of address and how to tell time, but that is about the extent of the vocabulary used. However, you will also learn basic verb forms, and how to construct sentences intuitively, and when you learn new words from other sources, it will be easy to use the words in grammatically correct sentences based on what the CD teaches you. This is an excellent starting point, but by no means does it cover all possible grammatical constructions nor provide extensive vocabulary. What it does do is give you an intuitive feel for the structure of the language and the pronunciation of words. Some of my friends are Iranian, and I had managed to pick up a few words by listening to them converse, but after using this program for an hour a day for about 2 weeks, I was able to understand and follow much of their conversation, though I still cannot speak well. I agree that there needs to be either an expansion of what is currently on the program, or an intermediate and advanced course developed.

22 of 24 people found the following review helpful:

3.0 out of 5 stars Not bad, but not enough, August 9, 2004

By 

New Farsi Speaker (Portland, OR) - See all my reviews

This review is from: Farsi (Audio CD)

I received this CD to learn farsi so I could speak the language with my potential in-laws. All my my fiance's family is from Iran and I wanted to learn the language so I could speak their native language with them and got this CD hoping it would help me out. While I was not upset with my purchase, I wished that the lessons went further into vacabulary. While the other review here is correct, the pronunciation is very good and you can learn the pronunciation very well here, there is not nearly enough on how to speak the language. I am lucky, that I have my fiance, who is fully fluent in farsi (and her family) to teach me more. If not for that I would have been disappointed with this CD. While this CD is a great start, more would definately been better. The lessons at first moved to slow, and then by lesson 7 and 8 they went to fast, then lesson 9 and 10 were to slow again. A second lesson CD package (like Farsi II) would be nice, but more farsi language in this first CD package would have been better.

14 of 14 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars Pimsleur vs. Rosetta Stone, May 26, 2008

By 

K. Davis "Geek" (Los Angeles, CA) - See all my reviews
(REAL NAME)   

Amazon Verified Purchase

This review is from: Farsi Persian, Comprehensive: Learn to Speak and Understand Farsi Persian with Pimsleur Language Programs (Audio CD)

I completed this course while concurrently using the Rosetta Stone software, and I'd like to offer a review which compares the two:

PRACTICALITY:
Pimsleur wins. You'll learn how to ask for directions, order in a restaurant, make introductions, haggle with a merchant, etc. After a similar amount of time spent using Rosetta, you'll know how to say things like, "These two girls are wearing red dresses and riding bicycles."

CONTENT:
Rosetta wins. I'm paying $100 to use Rosetta online for three months, compared to $140 for the complete Pimsleur comprehensive course. In the amount of time it took me to complete the Pimsleur course, I've learned much more vocabulary from Rosetta.

RETENTION:
Pimsleur wins. While this could partly be because it has less content than Rosetta, I feel that the Pimsleur method is still much better for fostering retention.

READING:
Rosetta wins. Reading is ingrained to every lesson, whereas Pimsleur has audio lessons with a separate small set of reading lessons.

OVERALL:
Both are great. Pimsleur will get you up to speed fast enough to encourage you to keep learning, while Rosetta probably offers more in-depth training over the long term. They also reenforce each other pretty well.