A Thematic Dictionary of Modern Persian [Hardcover]

Colin Turner (Author)

Book Description

ISBN-10: 0700704582 | ISBN-13: 978-0700704583 | Publication Date: December 18, 2003 | Edition: 1

Now available in paperback, A Thematic Dictionary of Modern Persian is a reference work unique in the history of English-Persian lexicography. It offers a considerably extended guide to modern everyday Persian vocabulary, arranged by theme. With approximately 25,000 Persian headwords in over seventy themed sections, it covers every conceivable vocabulary need: from everyday topics such as food or the weather, to more in-depth topics such as astronomy, psychology or international relations. Supplementary wordlists cover verbs, adjectives and parts of speech, while a special section on Persian simple and compound verbs will appeal to all learners of Persian. An easy-to-use index of English words, with over 20,000 items of vocabulary, completes the work and gives it the look and feel of a regular two-way bilingual dictionary.

Invaluable for vocabulary building, essay-writing and specialised translation, A Thematic Dictionary of Modern Persian caters for all your Persian language needs in one volume, and is designed to make word learning a pleasure rather than a chore.

Editorial Reviews

About the Author

Colin Turner is a Reader in Islamic Thought at the University of Durham,
UK. His main research areas include Islamic theology and philosophy;
Sufism; Shi'ism; The Qur'an and Qur'anic exegesis;
Persian language and literature. Some of his previous publications are
Islam: The Basics (2005) and The Koran (2004), also published by
Routledge.

Product Details

• Hardcover: 696 pages
• Publisher: Routledge; 1 edition (December 18, 2003)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0700704582
• ISBN-13: 978-0700704583
• Product Dimensions: 9.8 x 6.6 x 1.7 inches
• Shipping Weight: 3 pounds (View shipping rates and policies)
• Average Customer Review: 4.6 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (7 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #2,199,087 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)
  • #11 in Books > Education & Reference > Foreign Language Nonfiction > More Languages > Persian
  • #87 in Books > Education & Reference > Dictionaries & Thesauruses > Foreign Language > Persian & Farsi

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Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

7 of 8 people found the following review helpful:

3.0 out of 5 stars Interesting, Useful and Ridiculously Expensive, June 8, 2006

By 

Richard Deveno (Alameda, CA USA) - See all my reviews
(REAL NAME)   

This review is from: A Thematic Dictionary of Modern Persian (Hardcover)

First of all don't get your hopes up. This book is a big list of words organized loosely into several thematic chapters: crime, politics, trade, military, health, law, etc. Each chapter is about ten or twenty pages. And the format is sparse. Here is the english term, here is a phonetic transliteration of the Persian, here is the Persian in traditional script. No examples, no text other than the words. It's a giant set of lists, period. Each chapter is organized alphabetically by the Persian. However there is an alphabetic index at the back that lists the page where every English term is found. The book is certainly convenient and it's very nice to have everything for certain topical areas "right there". But I'm not sure if it's $135 worth of convenient. For this price one could actually afford to buy three or four specialized dictionaries. I would probably buy it again. Just wanted everyone to know what they were getting into though.

2 of 2 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars Expensive, but expansive, September 23, 2007

By 

RAK "RAK" (USA) - See all my reviews

This review is from: A Thematic Dictionary of Modern Persian (Hardcover)

The book is not cheap, but it has been extremely helpful to me. This is not a "starter" dictionary, nor should it be the only Persian-Farsi dictionary in your collection. It is very useful when you know what subject you need to research, and it supplements my other dictionaries quite well. This dictionary contains useful slang, and some other uncommon words not found in other resources.

1 of 1 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Extremely helpful, July 18, 2008

By 

Danesh Amuz (United States) - See all my reviews

Amazon Verified Purchase

This review is from: A Thematic Dictionary of Modern Persian (Hardcover)

This book has a few key points that actually do make it worth the price - I watched on and off for a year and the cheapest I ever saw was $119. I use this in conjunction with the Combined New Persian-English and English-Persian Dictionary, by Manoochehr Aryanpur-Kashani and Abbad Aryanpur-Kashani, by Mazda Publishing. These are the two best dictionaries I've found so far.

The good:

- The Thematic Dictionary lists the Farsi text as well as transliterated pronunciations in English rather than a crazy linguistic phonics system that's about as complicated as the Farsi alphabet itself. It's amazing how difficult that is to find. Personally, I like to guess on the pronunciation, but also to check and see if I'm right. This book lets me confirm or correct as needed.

- It lists the stems of irregular verbs right next to the verb itself.

- It does list synonyms (in English) and slang.

The first two I would call invaluable for anyone looking to learn Farsi. As all things do, however, it does have its flaws:

- Everything's listed alphabetically by the Farsi alphabet, so the index of English words is a must. It gets annoying quickly when you're looking up more than a few words at once. It's still worth it, and (for me, at least) it's incentive to remember the vocab you're looking up.

- Trying to look up a word in Farsi when you don't know what it means is pretty much impossible with this book, since you'd both have to know what category it falls into and hope it's the same as the word listed, since synonyms are of course an issue. So if you're serious about learning the language, you do need a regular dictionary as well.