Customer Reviews

Persian Grammar: For Reference and Revision

5 star:		(9)
4 star:		(4)
3 star:		(1)
2 star:		(0)
1 star:		(0)

 

 

This is a spectacular beginner to intermediate book to use in conjunction with a course-based text. This book cannot actually teach you persian all on its own, but as a reference it is indespensible. While your course book may lightly delve into grammatical topics, this book travels a little deeper but without assaulting you WITHOUT INCOMPREHENSIBLE GRAMMATICAL TERMS. It gives you a full understanding of any part of Iranian Persian (Farsi) Grammar.

The book is a well organized, modern, and not painful to the eyes to read. In addition, this text contains modern colloquial forms on the side. Also, uniform Latin transcription, definitions, Persian text are included for EVERY persian word referred to!

I definitely recommend this book, especially over Persian Grammar by Ann K.S. Lambton for students not interested in delving deeply into literary Persian. Lambton confuses you with advanced english grammar terms time an again while Mace's book uses a few of these terms and offers generous examples to back it up.

The bottom line: Buy this book if you want to have a good grammatical backing for your course oriented book for beginner to intermediate modern persian students.

This is the grammar book I wish I had found first. I bought another grammar text as well as word lists and colloquial speaking primers only to face several months of painful struggle. I allow that some early chapters here were easier by virtue of that struggle but life would have been much easier with this clear, well organized volume. It surely will not take the work out of foreign language study and cannot replace conversation tapes, vocabulary, story primers and human conversation; it will however, make all those more comprehensible in the early going. And if you read "How to learn any language" and plan to follow the advise to read five chapters of a grammar book, make it this one.

This is one of the best texts available for Persian grammar,and quite inexpensive for the content (now that it is in paperback). All example sentences appear with translations, and perhaps 95% of them also with transliterations. Stress is unmarked except in certain examples, but there is a thorough chapter devoted to the stress rules. This is not a text which is divided into lessons, and it uses a minimal amount of vocabulary in the examples (there are no excercises or readings). However, the topics do procede in a logical fashion, with the script and pronunciation chapters in the beginning, and with syntax and formal/arabic constructions towards the end. There is an index and an excellent internal reference system, but no glossaries (as it is not a lesson-text).

I should also add that Mace takes great pains to explain grammatical concepts with little linguistic (read: normal) terminology. Personally, I had expected the book to use accepted linguistic terms for everything. The only section of the work in which this decision proves problematic, though, is in pronunciation, which is very vague and English-comparative. One would expect a more appropriate treatment from a Routledge Publishing grammar.

Lastly, Mace makes amends for many of the outdated forms in his "lesson" book which he wrote for the TY series, this time pointing out forms that are outdated and ones which are standard literary. Where differences between literary and accepted colloquial occur, mixed examples are given from the start. I have not found the same frequency of errors and typos, either.

In summation:
-clear, large-type examples in script/transliteration/translation
-includes a section on Persian handwritten styles
-several lovely photographs included with captions (also translated)
-irregular verb forms treated in an appendix
-layman's terminology
-very easy (if idiosyncratic) reference system between sections of the grammar

Definitely the best introductory Farsi book I have seen. The easiest to work through, although I believe it is absolutely necessary to be painstaking about finishing each and every one of the numerous exercises provided. It is very nice to have a key provided for each lesson (this is the major downfall of Thackston's book, be nazer-e-man). Some errors, but not sufficient to hinder the learner.

This is a spectacular beginner to intermediate book to use in conjunction with a course-based text. This book cannot actually teach you persian all on its own, but as a reference it is indespensible. While your course book may lightly delve into grammatical topics, this book travels a little deeper but without assaulting you WITHOUT INCOMPREHENSIBLE GRAMMATICAL TERMS. It gives you a full understanding of any part of Iranian Persian (Farsi) Grammar.

The book is a well organized, modern, and not painful to the eyes to read. In addition, this text contains modern colloquial forms on the side. Also, uniform Latin transcription, definitions, Persian text are included for EVERY persian word referred to!

I definitely recommend this book, especially over Persian Grammar by Ann K.S. Lambton for students not interested in delving deeply into literary Persian. Lambton confuses you with advanced english grammar terms time an again while Mace's book uses a few of these terms and offers generous examples to back it up.

The bottom line: Buy this book if you want to have a good grammatical backing for your course oriented book for beginner to intermediate modern persian students.

I use John Mace's MODERN PERSIAN (Teach Yourself Books, 1st edition) as the main textbook in my Persian classes, because, as I said my Amazon.com review of it, as far as I'm concerned, it is the best textbook available for beginning Persian classes in American universities, but as a supplement, I use Mace's PERSIAN GRAMMAR. This text allows my students to achieve a deeper understanding of Persian grammar without their being overwhelmed by the esoteric grammatical terminology found in some other texts. Too, PERSIAN GRAMMAR updates some of the dated material in MODERN PERSIAN.

This is a helpful grammar book that provides simple explanations of essential topics for beginning to low intermediate Persian learners. I highly recommend it as the one grammar book to buy at the start of your Persian language learning journey. For the next edition or for other new Persian language resources, here are my wishes: 1) Put all Persian writing in 14pt(#1 problem-we can't read the small type), 2) Make the reference book a combination work/reference book with space next to the Persian writing examples for us to practice our writing (give us a model to copy from until we become confident on our own) 3) Put some exercises in the book and again plenty of space for us to practice the writing 4) Give us the answers for the exercises with rules or explanations 5) Give us more lists of verbs and conjugation, compound verbs, auxilliary verbs 6) Keep going-please write a higher level book. Don't stop at one, give us another higher level AND another book that provides ADDITIONAL practice at the same lower level. 7) Please make the learning process more modern and interesting for this language. The old school style of teaching and learning Persian alienates many of those who are interested in the culture. Modern ESL materials can offer ideas.

I can't wait for someone who really loves this language to take this challenge to improve the materials available for students (Mace seems like a writer who could do this!) As well there needs to be complimentary books for Persian educators who will be able to better understand their learners and provide a positive learning experience in the classroom and not so reliant on copying, translations and dictation-as important as they are. Thanks.

The mission of this book is clear from its title: It is intended to serve both as a reference work where beginning learners can go to clarify points of grammar that are confusing, and at the same time it is an excellent refresher for someone who has studied Persian but been away from it for a while. Persian is a language that starts out appearing to be very straightforward and approachable, but it gets trickier as it goes along and the excellent but highly technical references that are available (Lambton and Thackston) can seem very overwhelming for someone who is still relatively new to the game. That is not a problem that the student will encounter here- the book is sectioned very logically and its organization makes it possible to skip around it as needed. John Mace is a master of clear and simple exposition- there are very few writers on language who can do as effective a job at boiling difficult and complex concepts of grammar down to their essentials. Using it together with a good spoken course (I recommend Living Language) will be very helpful for anyone wanting an approach to their Persian studies that balances the colloquial and written forms of the language. It's also a good place for an absolute beginner to learn the alphabet- letters are introduced a few at a time and it's actually possible to come away with an idea of how they are actually written by hand. Every book on Persian (or Arabic) should do this, but this is one of the few that actually does.

John Mace's instructional writings on Persian and Arabic are justly well-known, and the current work maintains the high standard of the previous works. The book under review is easier to use (and more up to date) than Lambton's book, which most of us used in our studies. I also found the groupings of the various topics in Mace's book to be more convenient. What I would like next is a revised version of Mace's Teach Yourself Persian, which could link references to the present grammar for more detailed explanations. Incidentally, both books could benefit from a CD or audiocassette to teach the sounds and intonation of the language.

John Mace did wonders for Anglophones wanting to learn Persian through books. In order to appreciate this book, you must have a basic understanding of the Persian language and its pronunciation, but Mace does a pretty good job of transliteration/transcription for the non-linguist. This is a good pronunciation resource book for beginners.

One must still have some type of basic familiarity with certain pronunciations in Persian/Farsi before attempting to fully appreciate this book's value, although it is not absolutely necessary for a seasoned linguist. Mace includes BOTH colloquial speech applications, as well as formal and historical applications and/or origins of words. He discusses some of these at length to better clarify modern usage.

Each chapter is broken down into grammatical reference, with further references to other chapters that help clarify use and meaning. It is broken down through the use of 12 chapters, plus additional Appendices 1-4 for further clarification.

Here is the breakdown in order, by chapter:

(Covers both conventional and exceptional applications in most chapters throughout the book, within each chapter; note that some translations are direct transliterations, not perfectly translated into English, but these give the reader better understanding of HOW the language is structured, i.e. syntax)

1) Writing
2) Pronunciation
3) Nouns and Adjectives
4) Pronouns (subject, direct object, etc.)
5) Verbs (EXTENSIVE tense explanations and examples, including exceptional verb stems)
6) Prepositions (extensive explanations of the "ezafeh" 6.3)
7) Adverbs
8) Syntax (varied applications)
9) Numbers (including cardinal, ordinal, mathematical and time related)
10) Arabic forms (short chapter but contains invaluable Arabic references; one of the few around other than Lambtons, which is more extensive than Mace's Arabic references)
11) Wordbuilding (also contains historical references)
12) Polite forms (cultural applications and explanations)

Appendices:

1) Irregular present stem
2) Ezafe
3) Suffix
4) Definite direct-object suffix

Index: Contains many cross-reference entries between chapters

Mace's "Persian Grammar" is an invaluable Persian grammar reference book for the serious academic student.