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75 of 75 people found the following review helpful:
2.0 out of 5 stars
The original was better for most independent learners, May 28, 2004
By A Customer
This review is from: Teach Yourself: Modern Persian (TY: Complete Courses) (Paperback)
Having started my study of Persian over 30 years ago with the original "Teach Yourself Modern Persian", by John Mace, first published in 1964 and reprinted numerous times since then, I was eager to compare this newly released book by Narguess Farzad with the original. Unfortunately, while apparently more modern, the latest version will likely prove more difficult going for most people trying to learn Persian on their own. The original version featured a bit-by-bit approach, taking 36 pages to introduce the reader to the Arabic alphabet as used in Persian; this book merely provides two charts of the entire alphabet, one for tracing purposes, and then appends a bit over one page of exercises in combining the letters. After that, apparently, you're expected to have it down cold. The approach by Mace was certainly more user-friendly to readers with no background in the alphabet. The book then proceeds at a quick pace; the vocabulary lists can be dauntingly long for learners, and transliteration is used sparingly, sometimes leaving any reader not fully accustomed to the Arabic script at a disadvantage in terms of proper pronunciation. In contrast, the original book by Mace included transliteration for all vocabulary items and example sentences. Farzad's order of presentation is a bit unusual; the present tense of verbs other than "to be" and "to have" is not presented until page 127, for example. I am no longer as innocent of Persian as I was 30-odd years ago, but when I think back to my situation then as a total beginner, the original book by Mace strikes me as being much more suitable for someone working on his/her own to learn Persian. (It is still readily available through used-book channels.) I would thus recommend that people indeed looking for a "Teach Yourself" book for Persian get a copy of the original "Teach Yourself Modern Persian" by Mace, if possible, and then perhaps use the latest "Teach Yourself Modern Persian" by Farzad as a follow-up book to solidify the basics. Another useful book after getting the basics down is "An Introduction to Persian" by Wheeler Thackston, which would likely be fairly hard slogging for most true beginners.
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16 of 17 people found the following review helpful:
3.0 out of 5 stars
words words everywhere just not the right words!, May 7, 2005
This review is from: Teach Yourself: Modern Persian (TY: Complete Courses) (Paperback)
I am not new to Farsi and have been trying to learn it for atleast 5 years, i am getting good at it and am going to Iran this summer.
well, I picked up this book as a refresher and whilst Its one of the better Farsi books out there its NOT the best and I found a few things that are hampering when using this book.
for one, I ntoiced in the exercises in the sentences you need to translate often she uses words that HAVE NOT been introduced previously...not in the vocabulary or anything like that so its necessary to go to the inadequate dictionary in the back and try to find the word.
another thing is that again in the exercises often she will write, say something like "i have friends in Tehran" and then you need to translate it into Farsi. well, when you go to the answer key the answer would be "I have friends in Iran" or soemthing of this sort!!!
So there is quite a bit of disunity between the exercises, answer keys and words chosen to be used for the exercises.
It would of been far better if she'd of either put ALL the new words used in the vocabulary pages OR of not of used words she hasnt used before keeping things very simple.
all this is exceedingly frustrating...even for a non-newbie like me.
on the other hand I do like how she transcribes Farsi into English and I also like her formatte, what she introduces...its really good.
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7 of 7 people found the following review helpful:
2.0 out of 5 stars
Beautiful print, terrible text, December 17, 2007
This review is from: Teach Yourself: Modern Persian (TY: Complete Courses) (Paperback)
In terms of the print, the new edition of the Teach yourself Persian is a lot better than the old one, but the content is not. The grammatical points are not thoroughly presented, that is, not quite enough for a serious beginner to have an panoramic view of Persian grammar. Second, it offers too little information on colloquial Persian. Third, too few reading passages. It has audio CDs, which is good, but most Persian textbooks out there in the market have audios too. So if you want to teach yourself, I'd suggest to try out different books, among them, I recommend Thackston or John Mace as basic reference; tackling Lambton if you are interested in classical stuff,if you'd like to learn more about different varieties of Persian, Baizoyev's Beginner's Tajiki is a quite good book, if you just want learn some Persian phrases to travel or impress your Iranian friends... forget what I just said, get lonely planet Persian phrasebook.
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