Modern Persian: Complete Course

The reader attempting to learn Persian will understand how few choices there are. Two of the best ones are by John Mace: the one this review is appearing before, from the TY series, is perfect as a first book for a student supplement or self-learning. In this sense it is like Coulson's Sanskrit, rare for the TY series. The other Mace book is his vastly more expensive reference grammar, which need only be purchased if the reader is already beyond the TY book, or does not mind the price. Mace still has the best introduction of any author to the Persian script - the reader learns vocabulary along the way, and will never need to flip back and truly study something; there are good explanations and one just has to read. Because of how easily the writing system is introduced, there are no transliterations in excercises or the excercise key (but nearly every grammatical example sentence is romanized as are section vocabularies but not the end gloss lists) A few important things: - This is basic literary Persian, there is some attention in the latter sections given to colloquial pronunciations however nothing dialectal or idiomatic, and considerably more attention is given to formalisms. Use this book toward an understanding of reading Chubak, etc, not for www.persianblog.com - There is nothing in this book on classical or medieval Persian, look elsewhere for classical grammar(I believe Thackston wrote a book of older Persian though his may be out of print) - I would complain only that while the grammar is very comprehensive, the vocabulary is very minimal, and in a very few cases, old-fashioned. Once the reader has mastered the grammar as Mace presents it, which should not take a great deal of time, rely on a very good dictionary for any hope of translation work (such as ones by Aryanpour) As a beginning text, given the choices out there, Mace is the only one presenting Persian from a popular English perpsective. Those with linguistic backgrounds may buy Thackston's Modern Persian instead, though I have heard both books contain old-fashioned words and examples

When I first started to learn persian, this book provided the clearest guide for me to follow. It is an extremely useful source for beginner who wants to learn the language, or even for an advanced student who wants to brush up on the language. I definately recommend this book to anyone who wishes to learn persian, it is an absolute necessity. It is only because of this book that I am almost completely fluent in persian. However, I do not recommened the new revised "teach yourself modern persian" by Narguess Farzad, which is more of a tourist language book and has poor coverage of the language. The revised edition is nowhere comparable to the original by John Mace. Also, another great reference of grammar for persian is "Persian Grammar- For Reference and Revision" also by John Mace. This is another source which I have found extremely helpful.

Let me put my comment in context. This book is not perfect, it has the faults some other reviewers have pointed out. But it has its virtues too.To learn Persian you will need a knowledge of the formal language and its grammar, the script and the use of everyday language. This book helped me in the first two. Enough to get a first grasp of the language and enough on the script side to later cope with Arabic lessons much more easily. In other words, for me it has been a good basis to start with. That's my experience.Today I ordered a book on the colloquial language. I also have tried the Persian Tutor CD, it helps in certain points in conversation, maybe it will help too in learning the script.I really doubt that a single course (book or CD) can teach you all that is needed.I like this book, don't ask too much from it and you'll like it too.

I purchased my first copy of this great book 33 years ago in London, England. While working at Barclays Bank, I met an Iranian lady from Bank Melli Iran in training classes we attended. I surprised her by being able to speak to her in Farsi. One year later, we married in Tehran, Iran. After 3 years of marriage, I took a formal course at Harvard University. My professor was from Iran and believed in teaching only the finest, formal forms of Farsi. I have been forever grateful for his approach. In later years, native speakers of Arabic have attempted to teach me Arabic via memorizing vast quantities of colloquial expressions I shall never use. John Mace wrote a book on Arabic, too. The results have been very different. I left Harvard University with an excellent understanding of Farsi. Farsi grammar is far easier than Arabic grammar. I used Ann Lambton's Persian Grammar so much on my travels that the paperbound book fell apart.During my career, I have worked in the Middle East, Europe, India, and in Vietnam. From my experiences in trying to learn languages in the Middle East, I have had little success with teachers who are native speakers. The reason is that native speakers from the Middle East tend to believe in memorization.Books written by Western authors have been more useful to me because those authors use the approach of explaining why a language works the way that it does. They stress rules and patterns in languages. The disadvantage of these books tends to be that the authors have not mastered the languages. There will be some errors in these books.As another reviewer has already noted, John Mace used a brilliant technique in Modern Persian that all future foreign language authors should use. As a professor, I am tired of reading the books written by some foreign language professors who seem to write only to impress other foreign language professors. My goal in learning Farsi was to use the language, not to translate documents. At the same time, I do not need to read books containing the latest slang in Farsi any more than I would read a book on the latest American slang. John Mace's technique is to start the reader with the first two letters of the Fari alphabet. With only those letters, he taught readers how to write in Farsi script "with water." I have no use for books using only transliterations. I want to be able to read, write, and speak Farsi. John Mace continues his book by adding slowly other letters of the Farsi alphabet and by showing words and sentences you can make with only a small number of letters. This is the most pleasant foreign language learning experience I have ever had with the many foreign languages I have tried to learn. John Mace's book is by far the finest self-teaching foreign language book I have ever seen.Other reviewers have made some valid criticisms. The publishers planned for this book to be carried in your pocket. By keeping the physical size of the book small, the result was th

This book, went through the persian language slowly and throughly as to allow the reader a challenging read but not an overwhelming one. I recommend this book to anyone who is wanting to see a world never seen before or only dreamed of.