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However, it is not user-friendly. This book seems to have it all. The discussion of grammar is heavy with jargon, often making it extremely difficult to follow. It covers thoroughly every important aspect of Persian grammar, and in the course of reading it you should accumulate a substantial Persian vocabulary. I got a lot out of it. This passage is all too typical: "All conjunctions of concession, provision, and exception are followed by the subjunctive, present or past depending upon the temporal relationship to the main clause." There must be a simpler way to say that.Furthermore, there is no key to the exercises at the end of each chapter. You may think that you have correctly translated from Persian to English, or vice versa, but using this book alone, you can't be certain.
Both the printed script and nastaliq are used in this edition. If you prefer to write the way the printed word appears, then there are some good books on writing Arabic this way. I own the 3rd edition and now the 4th edition of this book. The 3rd edition has that, and while this new edition doesn't teach that, it would have been nice to have retained some of its elements. For example, whereas some of the exercises in the 3rd edition did not provide adequate task instruction, this edition closes the gap and has additional exercises. The script section has changed, and you are taught both scripts from the beginning. If you buy this 4th edition, you should purchase Teach Yourself Urdu Script, which gets into more detail about writing the nastaliq script.
I used that one along with Lewis' book.Overall, I am pleased with this new edition. Upon inspection and comparison of the 4th edition with the 3rd, I find improvements both in the area of description and new features. Teach Yourself Arabic Script is also a good book to acquire if you want to learn to use the handwritten style of Persian. The only thing I wish would NOT have changed was the teaching of the cursive/handwritten script. Other books likes Lewis' Elementary Persian teach handwriting quite well as does the Routledge grammar of Persian. Aside from the above on the script, the book appears to be the same, but with several revisions/improvements throughout. Regarding answers to the exercises, the publisher has informed me that the key to the exercises will be released as a separate title soon.
This book is helpful however it is weak on verbs in that it does not show verbs linked to pronouns and is printed in an archaic format
With this book things have begun to change. Sure, I knew about the origins and the linguistic family of the language. Before reading this book I did not have even a basic understanding of the structure of the persian language. It's given me an opportunity to explore this beautiful language. I admired its history and its contributions to south asian literary tradition and the influence upon south asian languages. But, I was nowhere near even having a rudimentary coversation in Farsi. I am continuing with Rosetta stone to develop conversational skills. I recommend this book for someone with a strong academic interest in the language.
This book has some very positive features. It isn't too difficult (most of the time) to puzzle out the meaning of the Persian-to-English exercises, but Persian syntax can get complicated and without someone to check them, a learner trying to translate into Persian can quickly wonder if he really knows what he is doing or if he has said what he meant to say. The spoken forms, are, of course, simpler: but they are also largely predictable from the written forms (and the converse does not apply).
The author was a great Persian scholar and also a very experienced teacher. There is also an appendix in which the major differences between spoken and written Persian are explained. It undeniably is extremely grammar oriented(get over it)., and contrary to what some other reviewers have said, it is not necessary to be a professional linguist to work with it and get benefit from it.
Although there is a literary flavor to the work, the author does give extensive supplementary vocabularies at the end of the lessons, many of which relate very naturally to everyday topics of conversation (food and clothing, to name just two). This is an extremely rigorous presentation and the material it offers is built up over the course of the lessons in a very systematic way.The book is highly biased toward the written language, and that needs no defense. Persian is a language where there is a real divergence between spoken and written, and in such cases a choice has to be made as to which to do first.
So the author has certainly done what he can to smooth the way for learners to transition from reading to speaking and after completing the book none of the other available materials for spoken Persian are likely to be difficult- but a learner whose primary interest is speaking should probably try another source first- the best one I've seen is probably the Living Language course.The reason for only three stars is, as many other reviewers, both positive and negative, have noted, is the lack of an answer key for the exercises- at the very least, a self-contained work should provide one for the English-to-Persian translation exercises. This book is a second edition, too- so the absence of a key is a flaw that should have been corrected by now.
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