Learn Persian (Farsi)

احوالپرسی کوتاه 2

اَمین: سلام سارا. حالت چطوره؟
سارا: مرسی. بد نیستم. تو چطوری؟

اَمین: ممنون. خوبَم
سارا: ببَخشید امین. من باید بروم

اَمین: روز خوبی داشته باشی
سارا: خدا حافظ

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Short Greeting 2

Amin: salām Sārā. hālet četore?
Sārā: mersi. bad nistam. to četori?

Amin: mamnun, xubam.
Sārā: bebaxšid Amin. man bāyad beravam.

Amin: ruze xubi dāšte bāši
Sārā: xodā hāfez

احوالپرسی کوتاه 1

اَمین: سَلام. صُبح بِخِیر
سارا: سَلام. صُبح بِخِیر

…

اَمین: خُدا حافِظ
سارا: خُدا حافِظ. به اُمیدِ دیدار

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Conversation 1

Amin: salām. sob(h) bexeir.
Sārā: salām. sob(h) bexeir.

…

Amin: xodā hāfez
Sārā: xodā hāfez. be omide didār

As you might have realised the letters introduced in the Persian Alphabet post, mainly stand for the consonants apart from three vowels represented by letters (ا – و – ی )
In Persian vowels are two types:

Long Vowels

آ ا /ā/ [as in father]

ی /i/ [as in fit]

و /u/ [as in pull]

Short Vowels

They are pronounced as (from right to left):

/a/ above letter [as in hat] short form of آ

/e/ under letter [as in red] short form of ای

/o/ abov letter [as in dome] short form of او

Note: These symbols may be used only in reference books or dictionaries and in an ordinary text (e.g. newspapers, the internet) you will not see them. The reader has to recogise and pronounce them from their background knowledge.

Lesson 1 – 10/02/2009

Some facts about Persian:

- Modern Persian uses the Arabic Alphabet. Although some sounds do not exist in Arabic. They are:

پ /p/
چ /c/
گ /g/
ژ /ĝ/

- There are 4 sounds in Persian which are represented by different letters. However, all of them are pronounced exactly the same:

- Unlike English, Persian is written and read from right to left

- You already know hundreds of words in Persian:
soup , team , jet, computer, bad
Some words have been slightly modified to fit into Persian sound system:
captain, lamp, sandwich, class, radio

- In terms of relations between what you see and what you pronounce, Persian is much more consistent than English. Most sounds are represented by only one letter.

- The use of -suffix and -prefix is quite similar to English