Colloquial Persian: The Complete Course for Beginners (Colloquial Series (CD)) [AUDIOBOOK] (CD-ROM)

by Leila Moshiri (Author)

Editorial Reviews

Product Description
Colloquial Persian is the ideal introduction to the modern language, also known as Farsi, as spoken in Iran. The author, an experienced teacher of the language, has devised a step-by-step approach to written and spoken Persian. No previous knowledge of the language is required. Learning to read and write Persian script is made as easy as possible. For those who wish to communicate in Persian without studying the script, romanization is included throughout. Other features include:

* concise grammar explanations
* lively dialogues with essential everyday vocabulary
* Persian-English and English-Persian glossaries.

Two 60-minute cassettes are available to accompany this course. They will help you perfect your pronunciation and comprehension skills. Colloquial Persian will enable you to speak, read and write Persian with confidence.

Language Notes
Text: English, Persian --This text refers to the Paperback edition.

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Product Details

• CD-ROM
• Publisher: Routledge; 2 edition (November 9, 2001)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0415157501
• ISBN-13: 978-0415157506
• Product Dimensions: 5.8 x 4.2 x 0.6 inches
• Shipping Weight: 4.2 ounces (View shipping rates and policies)
• Average Customer Review: 3.2 out of 5 stars See all reviews (8 customer reviews)
• Amazon.com Sales Rank: #472,318 in Books (See Bestsellers in Books)

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Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

28 of 30 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars A good introductory Persian lesson book., August 18, 2002

By	Zeno - See all my reviews

This review is from: Colloquial Persian The Complete Course for Beginners (With cassette) (Colloquial Series (Multimedia)) (Paperback)

This is better than Thackston's "An Introduction to Persian", which can be forbidding for beginners. It differs from Thackston in that it's emphasis is on spoken Persian rather than written Persian. However, having said that, neither book really does much to teach you how to read or write. They should be viewed more as refreshers and practice guides. Also, Rafiee's book comes with a key to the exercises and a cassette to aid in pronunciation, which Thackston's book lacks.

23 of 25 people found the following review helpful:

2.0 out of 5 stars A GOOD IDEA BUT POORLY DONE, October 12, 2002

By	Bob (DALLAS, TX) - See all my reviews

This review is from: Colloquial Persian The Complete Course for Beginners (With cassette) (Colloquial Series (Multimedia)) (Paperback)

After having bought several Persian self help books(most were of the literary form of Persian), this was a welcome attempt to fill the gap with the colloquial form. The only other colloquial book I have seen of merit is also from Rutledge publishers, but writen in roman transliteration. However, this new book written with Farsi script sadly falls into the same traps as many other language self help books, by constantly introducing new grammatical forms and vocabulary before explaining them; causing the reader to stop and try to look up an explaination somewhere else in the book- very frustrating.
Also, it give too much emphasis on slangy social etiquette forms early in the book used in meeting, greeting, introductions, etc. which also create frustrations when an adult learner tries to analize their structures grammatically.
Also, the vocabulary at end of book is not consistant with the words given in exercises, especially the English-Persian half.
Tapes are adecuate, thank goodness, and the whole set being the only "game in town"(using Farsi script colloquially),gives the nod to this purchase until someone else comes alone with a better version.

18 of 19 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars Really good book to learn spoken persian, February 23, 2003

By	Ludovic Kuty (Liege, Belgium) - See all my reviews (REAL NAME)

This review is from: Colloquial Persian The Complete Course for Beginners (With cassette) (Colloquial Series (Multimedia)) (Paperback)

Good points are: lessons are short, everyday life situations, good introduction of written persian, dialogues on the CDs are fast (and thus are close to real world situations), answers to exercises, english-persian dictionary. Also, the book is well structured.
Someone complained about the fact that people had to look up words frequently in the dictionary, that's true but you should write a list of all the words on a sheet and learn it anyway.
I first tried to learn persian with a french book but they switch to written persian at lesson 7. So it requires you to learn scripting early, which is a bad idea i think. This book lets you learn spoken persian.