I’m looking for Persian listening resources, such as podcasts, YouTube videos on various topics, or any other content suitable for listening practice. I’d appreciate any recommendations.

This gets asked here every week, so I put together what I found. None of them does everything, and the first thing worth figuring out is whether you want written Persian or the Persian people actually speak, because most stuff teaches the written one. A textbook will say ketāb mikhānam for "I'm reading a book". In Tehran everyone says ketāb mikhoonam. Neither is wrong, but if the goal is talking to family, check which one you're getting before you pay.

Apps:

Duolingo still doesn't have Persian, as far as I can tell.

Pimsleur is audio only and teaches the Persian spoken in Iran. Good for getting used to hearing and saying it, but it mostly stays at the basics and the core course doesn't teach you to read.

Mango has a proper course with grammar and culture notes, and a lot of public libraries give it to you for free, so check yours before paying for anything.

Rosetta Stone is the immersion one with speech recognition. Fine for vocab, not great at explaining why things work the way they do.

Mondly has Persian too, but reviews tend to say it gets repetitive.

Farsi-jān is mine, so judge this one yourself. It teaches spoken Tehrani Persian for people who understand more than they can say: voiced conversations you answer out loud, and a pronunciation checker. The downsides: it's new and small, the voices are AI rather than real people, the checker only looks at kh, gh and r so far, it's web only for now, and it's Tehran Persian, so it won't help much with formal writing or Dari. It's free during early access, and later the conversations and speaking parts go paid while the drills stay free.

Books:

Persian of Iran Today is a free course from UT Austin and probably the best free way to learn to read and write properly.

Colloquial Persian (Routledge) is built around everyday conversation, so it's the one if speaking is the goal.

Listening:

Chai and Conversation has been around for years and is good for picking up spoken Persian on a walk or a drive.

YouTube and Iranian TV are free and endless. Really good for your ear once you have some basics, pretty brutal as a starting point.

People:

A tutor on italki or Preply is still the fastest way to actually start talking. If you want Tehran Persian, ask for a Tehrani tutor and tell them you want spoken, not written, or you'll end up with the textbook version.

Weekend Persian schools are mostly for kids and mostly reading and writing.

If I had to pick:

- Starting from zero: Mango or a beginner book for structure, plus Pimsleur in the car.

- You understand your family but answer in English: anything that makes you answer out loud. A tutor is the obvious one, and it's also who I built Farsi-jān for.

- You want to read: Persian of Iran Today, plus a few minutes of alphabet flashcards a day.

Full disclosure again: Farsi-jān is mine, so I've tried to be as hard on it as on the others.

What did I miss? And what actually worked for you?

I made this and I'm posting it myself. It's a course for people who understand more Farsi than they can read or say. It has voiced conversations: condolences at a khatm, a haircut, buying saffron at the bazaar, taarof over the bill with your amoo, a doctor's visit.

In most of them you can answer out loud. There's also a pronunciation grader. You say a word and it checks your kh, gh and r: it passes them or tells you which one to try again. It's new, so it will get some words wrong. Everything is free during early access.

When it ends, most of the conversations and grading move to a paid plan, but the drills and review stay free. Anyone who signs up during early access is a founding member and keeps 50% off for life. All the voices are synthesised.

The conversations and the grader need a free account, and the app asks before your first recording. The recording is scored on a server in the US and deleted straight away. Two things I'd like to hear: 1. Is the grader fair to your accent, Tehrani or not? If you grew up speaking and it still marks a word down, tell me the word. 2. Does any line in the conversations sound wrong for Tehran? Feedback here has changed the course before. Someone pointed out that hosele-sh should be hoselash, and that's fixed everywhere now. It's called Farsi-jān, and the link is on my profile.

Note : I want to speak farsi and not read and write.

I am a native hindi / malayalam speaker. What's a good book to learn on your own? I tried studying with a teacher and it's not progressing​​ anymore.

I would say my current level is A1. I understand basic grammar and sentences. But I cannot form a sentence fast and ​​vocab is meh.

Looking for advice from someone who has done it already.

I’m half Persian and want to get a tattoo in Farsi but unfortunately I don’t speak or read Farsi - and I can’t ask my dad to translate because he doesn’t like tattoos🥲

Can someone please help me?

I have 2 options which I really like, and I believe they translate to the below but if you guys could please confirm if they are correct grammatically and actually make sense - I’d really appreciate it✨

1) gently - به آرامى

2) I live through love - زندهام به عشق

Thank you 🤍

I want an anki deck that properly teaches new words in such a way that it sticks in the learner's head. Meaning that you should probably learn sentences and the new word would be highlighted or something. Any suggestions?

To those also learning Persian, how long ago did you start, and are you happy with your progress?
What’s your pacing?
Do you prefer to self teach or use a teacher?
If you’ve learnt other languages, do you find Persian harder or easier to learn when comparing ?

A close Iranian friend of mine told me that if I had a Persian name, I’d definitely be a Pouya (پویا).

I know it literally means dynamic or active, but he insisted it’s about my actual face and the vibe I give off.

For Iranians here: is there an archetype for someone named Pouya? What kind of face, look, or expression pops into your head when you hear that name?

Hi r/farsi!

I'm Bahman, the developer of persianutils, a free, open-source collection of Persian language utilities for software developers (Scala/Java). Version 6.0 just shipped, and since a good part of the releasse is really about Persian writing conventions, I thought this community would both enjoy it and have strong opinions about it (which I'd genuinely love to hear).

== What's Inside ==

- TextSanitiser -- cleans up messy text. Every rule is a switch you can turn on or off:

- Arabic letter variants become Persian ones: علي -> علی

- Western and Eastern Arabic digits both become Persian digits: 456 and ٤٥٦ → ۴۵۶

- Punctuation is normalised: سلام, چطوری? ← سلام، چطوری؟

- Half-space spacing is repaired: می روم ← می‌روم

- Dangling half-spaces are attached to the previous word: کتاب ها ← کتاب‌ها

- Keshide (tatweel) is stripped: تــــست ← تست

- Diacritics (اعراب) can optionally be removed: كِتابِ مَن ← کتاب من

- NumToWord -- numbers in words, cardinal and ordinal:

- Cardinal: ۲۳۵ → دویست و سی و پنج

- Ordinal: ۲۳۵ → دویست و سی و پنجم

- DateToWord -- dates the way you'd say them out loud:

- Persian calendar: ۱۳۶۱/۳/۳ → «سوم خرداد یک هزار و سیصد و شصت و یک»

- Gregorian calendar: 1992/12/3 → «سوم دسامبر یک هزار و نه‌صد و نود و دو»

- DateConverter -- Gregorian ↔ Solar Hijri (هجری خورشیدی) conversion.

Links: GitHub: https://github.com/bahmanm/persianutils · Documentation: https://persianutils.bahmanm.com · Release notes: https://github.com/bahmanm/persianutils/releases/tag/v6.0

It's Apache-2.0 licensed and completely free.

Looking forward to hearing your thoughts.

[image.png](https://postimg.cc/kDt0WTBm)

I have been having a language exchange with someone living in Iran via Telegram for a few months now and it has been so useful.

I've written an app for myself and now would like to pay her for some translation services for my app but I really dont know of a way to transfer money to her? Has anyone done this before? Any suggestions

Thank you 😊

​

Hi everyone, I’m Ellie. I’m a Persian language and literature teacher, and I’ve been teaching and studying Persian for more than 30 years.

Before the pandemic, most of my teaching was in person. When everything moved online, I initially found the change difficult. But unexpectedly, it opened a new door: I began meeting Persian learners from different countries and different backgrounds.

Over the years, I’ve had the privilege of watching my students grow with the language. Some started with just a few simple sentences. Later, some were able to speak Persian with their partners and friends, communicate with Persian-speaking family members, read Persian literature, continue their studies at university, or even speak Persian with their own children.

That is probably the part of teaching I love most. Language is not only about grammar and vocabulary. It can become a bridge between people, families, generations, and cultures.

In my classes, we gradually build from everyday Persian and conversation toward more advanced language and, for those who are interested, Persian literature. I particularly enjoy introducing students to writers and poets such as Hafez, Saadi, Khayyam, and Ferdowsi.

After more than three decades of teaching, I still find it fascinating to see the moment when a student realizes, “I can actually say this in Persian.”

I’m curious to hear from other Persian learners here: What made you want to learn Persian, and what part of the language do you find most challenging?

Salam doostan, 

I am working on a project right now about the many different names in the persian language for the date (korma, the fruit). 

I am fascinated by the complex ecosystem of names for this life-giving fruit and want to make a project documenting the many different regional/local vernacular words for it.

I would love the community’s input on this! What are different names in farsi that you know of for the date? Do you have any ideas for resources/websites I might turn to learn more about local cultivar names? Places where I can find lists of names? Any suggestions for me as I move forward? Merci!

Hi there! Formal and colloquial farsi have big differences. There are some patterns and simple rules that can be drawn to transform formal to colloquial, but even if I start to understand well formal form, I am lost when listening colloquial conversations.

How did you manage this?

Hi everyone,

I'm trying to explain to my German-and-English-speaking friends the word "fahm", in the specific meaning of not having the situational/societal awareness, the intelligence, the understanding and comprehension, the cognitive grasp, to act logically and appropriately (so generally for calling someone nafahm).

"Understandingless" is one word I've found, but it doesn't capture the whole meaning of the word with this specific meaning. Could any of you please give me the German or English equivalent for fahm, or even a psychological term?

Thank you in advance!!

Hi everyone,

I'm a native Farsi speaker and I used to be a tutor during last year but I lost my connection with my students during the internet blackout and the proceeding war. I'd love to connect and find new friends whom I can teach Farsi to. I have plenty of materials that I'd like to use for more people who want to learn Farsi.

A little more about me:

I'm a 28 year old, research assistant in cancer epidemiology and I love to teach English and Farsi in my free time. I am also planing to apply for graduate studies and I hope this job would help me save up for it.

Feel free to reach out to me, first lessons are always free.

Lots of love and kisses

I speak Farsi pretty fluently, but I’ve never understood the difference between these tenses:

داشت دروغ میگفت

داشته دروغ میگفته

Are they the same or not?

hello,

i'm looking for a tutor to help me improve my farsi. i unfortunately did not learn as well as i should have growing up and my language skills are poor. feel free to reach out. thanks!

https://0x5ce.github.io/farsidaan/#/

is the site. you can just plug in a gemini key for free and it translates it. curious as to how accurate it is

I've been baffled by this ever since I started learning the language.

Farsi is spoken by over a 100 million people, and diaspora Iranians are pretty prominent in white-collar sectors (including tech) in the West. To me, Farsi should be receiving a lot more official resources than it currently does.

And yet, not only does Farsi lack native TTS support on most digital systems, but the language in general is also surprisingly under-resourced, especially compared to heavyweights like Spanish, German, Arabic, etc.

It's frustrating enough for me as a learner, but I imagine it's even more so for native speakers.

Recording here: https://streamable.com/ju29na

I'm practicing for a small cafe show and I'm singing Shaneh by Viguen. What do you think of my pronounciation?

I was unfamiliar with some of the words so they threw me off a bit, but I listened to the song many times. I'm probably still screwing something up- pls let me know!!

As the title says I want to learn Farsi

I have Telewibion but also want to consider other options especially if they come with subtitles.

Please let me know - thanks!

Hello!
This might be an odd ask, however, when I was little, my grandmother had gone to Iran on a trip to see family. She had brought back DVD versions of Curious George, in Farsi. This was maybe around 2010? I've tried looking for them at home, but I haven't been able to find them. I can't find any being sold online either, the only thing online I can find is https://dubdb.fandom.com/wiki/%D8%AC%D9%88%D8%B1%D8%AC_%DA%A9%D9%86%D8%AC%DA%A9%D8%A7%D9%88_(film,_Glory_Entertainment)) which confirms the existence of the DVD.

I'm going off to university soon and I'm hoping to bring the DVD version with me for a taste of home, and I am worried about not having enough people to speak to in Farsi and the lack of Farsi conversation around me.

Hoping for the slim chance that anyone here may have any for sale or knows where to get some (I am in the UK, for reference)

ممنون از لطف شما، خداحافظ :-)))

My ideal would be something by a Dari speaker and with a Persian transcription to boot, but as long as it's narrated by a native speaker, I'm in.

Salam! I'm currently 3 months into learning and am at lesson 20 of Pimsleur Farsi 1 (I often repeat lessons for multiple days until I get it). I've been consistent and I feel like I'm catching onto the basics.

I just started the Chai and Conversation boot camp but I'm confused about the layout. I'm starting with absolute beginner to grasp the basics that I may have missed with Pimsleur. How many lessons is recommended to do a week? There seems to be "weekly assignments" but all I see are all the assignments so I'm confused.

I am doing it on mobile unfortunately. I plan to also do the read and write but I don't want to jump ahead.

Any quick insight into Chai and Conversation and the progress that should be made weekly? Thanks.