Farsi-English/English-Farsi Concise Dictionary [Persian]

It's not an exhaustive dictionary of usage and style. However, anyone who uses a language dictionary in only one direction is just asking to call himself an "army" when he wants to say game show "host" -- and accrue to himself the ridicule he has so richly earned. Also, the book's back cover says it's for "travelers, businesspeople or students of Farsi or English". In context, I'd not assume that "students" means Ph.D. candidates in Middle Eastern Studies. There are more scholarly works for you folks, anyway. I'm a beginning Farsi student and I'm a bit older (hence, equipped with external visual enhancements - "glasses"). One thing that I REALLY REALLY like about this book is that, in spite of its small size, the Farsi script is big enough to see. This has been a real issue for me studying Arabic and Farsi. 10 point English script is NOT equivalent to 10 point Arabic. So, for that one thing alone, I'm willing to overlook a myriad of other relatively minor shortcomings. That said, while I would have appreciated the short vowel markings, the English transliteration is good -- and probably more helpful to the beginner (admittedly, a bit more dangerous, too, but nobody will EVER think me a native-speaker, anyway.) It's a good, useable aid. It's basic, but it's aimed at a pretty basic audience. Each entry has 4 items as follows: E ~~> F <br />agility // ejilitii // n (Farsi script) // chaboki // (note, it shows a ^ over the a in chaboki) <br /> <br />F ~~> E <br />(farsi script) // rahnama (^ over 1st/last a's) // guide // gayd (w/ ^) <br /> <br />That's what you get. Hope this helps!

This dictionary isn't perfect, but it's a good start. Its advantages are that it has each Persian word written in both a Roman transliteration as well as the original Arabic script, its layout is fairly straightforward, and according to a Persian friend of mine, the words included are fairly typical. He also said that it's well suited for what I needed it for, but stressed that it's for beginners. The only thing I could see as an improvement to this book is that it include a cue to the meaning of the translations for words with one-to-many translations. For example, the English word lie has two meanings (synonyms with recline and deceive), but if you look up lie in this book, you will get two entries, with no indication as to which one means which. If I had known what was in this book before I bought it, I would still have bought it. It was affordable and is worth its price, but it's not going to be my last dictionary.

Interesting dictionary. Better than any of the others that I have seen previously. I give a lot of credit to the author.

This is the best Farsi/English dictionary I have found. Any other dictionary will show you the word you are looking for in English but present the translation in actual Farsi script. What sets this dictionary apart from the others is that there are phonetic translations so that if you cannot read Farsi, you can sound the word out by reading the English translation. The dictionary is split in an English section and a Farsi section so you can actually do the same if you are strictly a Farsi reader and speaker. My disappointment in the others reviews is that this is a dictionary, not a farsi or english lesson. It is not going to teach you how to speak the language. It will merely show you how to say it. And let's be honest, if you are a novice in either language, chances are you won't be looking for words out of the ordinary. Hands down, if you can't read Farsi and you simply need to know how to say a word, this is the one for you.

This dictionary is definatly the one to go with if you are learning Farsi. Each word features a phonetic transcription, making it much easier. There is however, not much about grammar in it, but that's okay. I can easily say that this is the best book for your money, and an absolutely mandatory purchase if you're learning Farsi.