Customer Reviews

Lonely Planet Farsi (Persian) Phrasebook

5 star:		(10)
4 star:		(7)
3 star:		(2)
2 star:		(0)
1 star:		(0)

 

 

Even though I've "advanced" through most of the vocabulary and grammar in this guide, I use this as a supplement to my other Persian-English dictionaries because of the handy explanations of grammatical rules. The dictionary in the back is extremely useful, with both an English to Persian section and a section with the phonetic pronounciation of words (in Latin script) for English speakers to easily determine the meaning of (and learn to spell in Persian at the same time!). Very useful for travel and for students of the language who want a small resource guide.

As a student of Persian language and literature, I had some serious issues with this book. The written Persian component to the words/phrases is full of spelling mistakes. The (colloquial) pronunciation is not always consistent with itself, nor always correct, and a few of the words/phrases are a bit quaint. The book provides a great introduction to the grammar of Persian, but its explanation of Arabic plurals is misleading.

That being said, this book offers lots of great vocabulary, as well as many useful phrases that are, for the most part, idiomatically correct and commonly used. This book would prove indispensible to any traveller, and it is a good overall guide to Persian language and culture. I would, however, caution serious students of Persian not to rely too much on this book.

This is a great little book for beginners. Unlike many phrase books or even grammar books, it does not simply romanize the phrases, but also gives the text in the native alphabet as well. It includes basic grammar lessons, sentence structure (farsi is an S-O-V language), and 2 glossaries (English and Farsi). The phrases and vocabulary sections are well-designed because they focus on the sorts of dialogues that occur when people are just getting to know one another socially and move on to the needs of travelers. Additionally, the book is interspersed with various cultural notes and also contains some poetry by the famous author Omar Khayyam in parallel text (Farsi, Romanized Farsi, and English). In my opinion, this cheap little book is packed with more than enough information and vocab for someone in their first 1 - 2 years of studying the language and is a far greater value than most of its competitors.

I am a student and non native speaker of Persian language. For the longest time, I have been wading through grammar books in my attempt to become conversant in Farsi. Most grammar books go on and on about grammar and introduce very little conversation or new vocabulary words at the start. They emphasize how to write the Persian script which is complex to learn and all new words are written in it so these grammar textbooks insist that you can read and write Farsi before speaking it. Well, since I need to be able to communicate with Persians in dialogue this book is much better. Not perfect but quite useful to quickly get basic level of speaking skill in Farsi.

Although this is a mini-sized paperback that could easily fit into your shirt pocket, it's remarkably useful.

Each page typically has three columns: the leftmost is the English, the middle is the Farsi in romanized letters, and the right column is the Farsi in Arabic script. But it's not merely a phrasebook: there are paragraphs scattered throughout to relieve the monotony.

For example, there are many, many notes on culture and linguistic usage. Considering how much information this book contains, it's astonishing it's so small. If the pages were made bigger, it could conceivably serve serve as a freshman-level text!

Really after studying from this I was impressed by how handy I became in Farsi, although in all honesty this is likely ascribable neither to my perspicacity nor the boon of this volume, but simply to the fact that Farsi is Indo-European, and so much of its grammar and sensibilities are readily apprehended by a Westerner.

But this book was a major help. When I reflect on how little it cost me versus how much use I got out of it, Lonely Planet's "Farsi Phrasebook" may have been one of the most profitable purchases of my life.

I liked this book a lot. I took a college-level Farsi class and found this was more helpful than any of our textbooks in our conversations. I thought the dictionary in the back was also helpful because I could follow the logic. For example, in my full dictionary, I couldn't find "pet" or "pets." This book explained that dogs especially aren't commonly kept as pets, which was interesting.

I did not like the English transliterations. I thought they were distracting. I was also learning to read and write Farsi, so I wanted to look at the print and see words, as opposed to seeing something that needed translating. Although it may have provided a good transition for someone who didn't know the alphabet, it was frustrating for me.

What a good move I made by purchasing this book FROM Amazon!!!
I will be traveling out to the Middle East this year and have been trying to catch up with my Persian language, better known as Farsi. I have been receiving some tutoring, which was very well received, but this book has put me right on to where I want to be.
You will find this Persian phrasebook suitable for travelers with all those important questions you will need to ask at the airport, in the market when purchasing items, finding your way around, almost anything for that matter. I highly recommend this book to those traveling to the East and please keep it on you for easy reference. It is such a handy book and can fit right into the smallest pocket book or jeans pocket. Well done!!!
SUGAR-CANE 20-2-05

Great description of grammar (Persian and English, by the way), and the right number of regular and irregular verbs are given in table form so you can see the differences easily. Also they have some excellent recommendations for how to get started with speaking a new language, which I only wish could be taught to more kids at school level. Two things let this book down just slightly: (i) they drop the "spelt-out-in-words" translations showing the Persian word order a little too early in the book, and (ii) the dictionary at the back frustratingly omits quite a few of the words encountered in the course of the book. Recommended, but if they write a second edition and fix up a few of these things then it will be just about perfect !

Me and my wife where looking to find a good book for her to learn Farsi, and we found one in a bookshop in Manhatan last week, it is well designed, have almost everything that a person who wants to travel to Iran needs to read, in it. And best of all, it is pretty cheap. I have alreay recomend it to many of my friends and will recomend it to people who want to learn Farsi using our Farsi Learning Project (www.panjere.net/iran/language/learn/) that we will start on September 2001.

An excellent little work, mainly through the obvious teamwork of author and editors in producing it to what must be a proven template by this publisher. I find I get endless and informative entertainment just by dipping into it. And you can do this on day one of learning Farsi, and just as enjoyably and profitably once your studies have advanced. Even the short dictionary section is very good. This is one Farsi language resource book that won't disappoint you.