Persian
Upcoming:
- The DLI Sustainment and Enhancement course is still under development but promises to take a learner beyond beginner's level.
- If you would like Persian courses on Livemocha vote here in their poll.
Essays
Wikipedia Persian, Dari, Tajik,
- Lots of info on the history, phonology, grammar, vocabulary, script, dialects .
School of Oriental and African Studies - About Persian
- Information on the Persian language, difficulty and literature.
Handbook for Students of Persian
- Helpful information about Persian, frequently asked questions by students, and online and offline resources.
UCLA Persian Profile, Dari Profile & Tajik Profile
- Nice article with map about the grammar, history, related languages, script & role in society of Persian, Dari & Tajik.
Pahlawi/Fari/Dari by Rameen Moshref
- Essay about the different names used for Persian throughout history.
Omniglot Persian, Dari & Tajik
- Info on the language, scripts used to write it & links.
- Some info about Farsi, Iran and languages spoken in Iran.
- Essay on the history of Dari and its literature & poetry.
Languages of the world Persian
- Very concise article on dialects, structure, writing & resources.
- Overview of the language, alphabet, vocabulary and grammar.
Courses (Beginning/Basic)
- 130+ lessons on grammar vocab & how to write Persian with audio & lots of exercises. A fantastic resource. A Spanish version here.
Persian for Beginners by Iraj Bashiri Available in English & Russian
- A complete course with grammar explanations, dialogues, drills, exercises, audio and a writing tutorial.
- Lessons from beginning to advanced based on reading Persian text and listening to audio. Also has an alphabet tutorial.
- Beginner's course with grammar explanations, vocab, exercises and audio.
- 80+ lessons with audio and transcript. Only available in Arabic.
- Teaches entirely in Hindi through audio & pictures. Lots of lessons & exercises and an active community.
Courses (Intermediate+/Supportive courses)
GLOSS Persian & Dari by the Defense Language Institute
- Improve your Persian or Dari with lessons on reading & listening comprehension. Intermediate and beyond level.
Weekly Training Events by the Defense Language Institute
- Improve your Persian or Dari with listening & reading lessons from authentic material. Intermediate and beyond level.
Intermediate listening and reading project
- Multimedia exercises to improve student's Tajiki ability.
- Basic dialogues and readings with audio from the textbook 'Modern Persian Spoken and Written' by D. L. Stilo.
Websites
- Java based site with audio to learn Farsi vocabulary.
- Lots of links to sites useful when learning Persian.
- Flash based exercises for learning basic vocabulary.
- A short list of survival Farsi phrases and vocabulary.
DLI field support Persian & Dari
- Various language survival kits available, some specific to the military.
- 7 lessons in romanised Persian, with grammar, exercises & vocab.
- A few quizzes and games.
- Interactive tests for learning useful words and phrases for travellers, with audio.
- University website offering a lot of material, including audio, songs, courses and tutorials, poetry, film clips, vocab and more.
- Simultaneous text with pop-up translation and audio for Farsi, Dari and Tajik.
- Tutorials on the alphabet and writing Persian, as well as info on vocab and grammar.
- Several articles about Iranian languages, Persian dialects, Iran history, culture etc in English and Persian.
Anamnese Persan Only available in French
- An online grammar of Persian, dictionary and comparison between Persian and Indo-european languages.
- Wikibooks for Persian in various states of completion in several languages. The English & German versions are the most complete.
Persian Фарси Only available in Russian
- Articles on Iran and the Persian language, downloadable textbooks, pop-up dictionaries etc.
- Some basic romanised lessons focusing on simple grammar and vocab.
Tadschikisch für Einsteiger Only available in German
- 22 audio lessons on Tajiki grammar.
- A nice phrasebook introducing basic grammar, pronunciation and useful words and phrases.
Online Persian Language Learning Resource
- A collection of links for Persian learners including online lessons, radio, textbooks, news sites, articles, poetry, writing system etc.
- 5 basic conversation lessons teaching around 80 common words, uses romanization.
Script
Easy Persian Also available in Spanish
- The first 10 lessons teach Persian script thoroughly, with audio, drills and animations showing how to write each letter.
Persian for Beginners by Iraj Bashiri Available in English & Russian
- Includes a 39 page coursebook on how to write Persian, with audio and lots of exercises.
- Includes a tutorial introducing all the letters in the Persian script, with example words and audio.
- Guide to the Dari script, handwriting & numbers.
- Short guide to the Persian alphabet, with a chart of the letters and pronunciation tips.
- Tutorial on the alphabet and writing Farsi, with pictures and exercises.
E-books
Persian language and culture by Elahe Mir-Djalali, 1992
- A grammar book, teacher's manual and course book all in one.
Introductory Persian by Donald L. Stilo and others, 1966
- Peace Corps course based on dialogues and exercises.
Conversational Persian by Homa Svare and others, 1966
- Peace Corps course covering a variety of different subjects.
Intermediate Dari for Peace Corps Volunteers
- 8 different units that teach using presentation, reinforcement, recapitulation and conversation drills.
- Thorough course used to train US diplomats, unfortunately, no audio is available right now.
- Thorough and useful course, however, only units 1-12 are available. (audio available to buy here)
DLI Persian I, II, III, III drills, IV, V, VI, VII, VIII 1967
- Thorough course used by the US military, unfortunately no audio is available right now.
DLI Persian Reader, glossary & notes 1967
DLI Persian Skits & Reader 1975
DLI Persian: A Guide to Persian Reading & Writing 1966
DLI Persian Reader - Area Background 1966
Higher Persian Grammar by D. C. Phillott, 1919
- A comprehensive book on Persian grammar.
- Many school textbooks from elementary to university level are available here.
Descriptive Grammar of New Persian by N. Fazel In En & De
- Academic grammar with example sentences, looks fairly comprehensive.
ペルシア語入門 by Adelah SA 'Idzadeh Only available in Japanese
- Complete course with alphabet tutorial, vocab, grammar explanations, dialogues, lots of exercises and more.
Moscowicro Persian Only available in Russian
- An e-book on Persian writing with audio to accompany.
- A collection of e-books about Tajiki in German and Russian.
Review of the Persian Writing System 2003
- Overview of the writing system, specifically for Tajiki.
Podcasts
Farsi for You from IRIB World Service
- 49 episodes for learning spoken Farsi through dialogues. Notes in French available here.
Tajiki language learning podcasts
- News articles in simplified language from Indiana university.
Forums
- Find help about learning Persian, information on the language and resources (online & offline).
Authentic material
TRT Persian, TRT Dari, BBC Tajik, BBC Persian, NHK, RFI, VOA Persian, VOA Dari
- News, podcasts, radio & video (on VOA) in Persian, Dari & Tajiki
- Radio and podcasts about culture, news, science, entertainment; lots of interesting material.
Technical
- A pop-up dictionary that annotes Persian sites and text.
Digital Dictionaries of South Asia
- 2 dictionaries for Persian, fully searchable and with romanization and script.
- Downloadable and online searchable two-way romanized Persian dictionary.