The Routledge Introductory Persian Course: Farsi Shirin Ast
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Product Description
Product Description
The Routledge Introductory Persian Course: Farsi Shirin Ast is an innovative Persian language course designed both for undergraduate and postgraduate students who are new to the language.
Focusing both on grammatical and communicative competence, the course contains 15 lessons combining authentic dialogues and texts with grammar explanations, exercises and audio materials to guide and support the student through the key skills of reading, writing, speaking and listening.
Key features:
- lively, content-based materials – the language is taught and practiced through a variety of dialogues and texts on the culture, history, and traditions of Iran
- complete vocabulary lists – each vocabulary entry contains the English meaning, the part of speech in Persian, as well as a sample sentence in Persian
- colloquial situational dialogues – students are introduced to spoken Persian from the outset
- carefully controlled exercises – new grammatical points are practiced in a variety of controlled exercises that bridge between students’ existing information and the new information
- audio material – students can develop natural pronunciation by imitating the audio recordings of the vocabulary, dialogues, and texts available freely on the companion website
- glossaries – comprehensive Persian to English and English to Persian glossaries.
The Routledge Introductory Persian Course: Farsi Shirin Ast provides everything that students and instructors need for an engaging and effective learning environment.
Pouneh Shabani Jadidi is Head of the Persian Language Program and Faculty Lecturer in Persian at the Institute of Islamic Studies, McGill University, Montreal, Canada.
Dominic Parviz Brookshaw is Lecturer in Persian Studies and Iranian Literature at the University of Manchester, UK.
About the Author
University of Manchester, UK McGill University, Canada
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Customer Reviews
Most Helpful Customer Reviews
1 of 1 people found the following review helpful
Format:Paperback
I had really looked forward to this modern academic approach to Persian teaching. But the valuable audio material that is supposed to be available online on a companion website does not exist anymore. Without these files, a very essential part of the learning process - in particular when this is a less accessible language as Persian - namely the pronunciation of modern Persian, is out of reach of the learner. The publisher informed that the audio material is not available and may probably not be until the next edition! I suggest you check the availability of the complete product before purchasing the book. What a pity.
1 of 1 people found the following review helpful
Format:Paperback
One of the innovations this course brings is that instead of wastefully producing a CD that 90% of people are going then copy onto an MP3 player and then throw away is that it has a website offering this and more. The only problem is that the website doesn't actually exist. So you are stuck with a book with no answers and no recordings. See how far you get with that!
Edit: They now have a website up but no answers so this book would be no good for self-study!
Edit: They now have a website up but no answers so this book would be no good for self-study!
Most Helpful Customer Reviews on Amazon.com (beta)
Amazon.com:
6 reviews
10 of 10 people found the following review helpful
Better than many doesn't make it great
28 Jun 2010
Format:Paperback|Amazon Verified Purchase
I've been waiting months for this book to come out in paperback, so I was really excited when it arrived. As I flipped through, I thought perhaps I'd misremembered the product description. The book doesn't come with CDs for the audio; you have to go to a website (listed below) for it. And I may have missed it, but I didn't see a link - or even anything saying that the audio is separate! - anywhere in the book at all. I knocked a full star off for that. Why? Not only was I highly irritated that the audio was "missing" until I thought to check the publisher's website, but I was also panicking and annoyed since the diacritical accent markings for short vowels aren't written. The lack of diacriticals is understandable in the lessons but highly annoying in their absence from new vocabulary lists and the glossary. However, at least the proper pronunciation is available at all with the audio function...even if it isn't necessarily convenient to review vocabulary like that.
Mostly, this book seems to condense quite a bit. I believe each lesson is intended to take about two weeks, but most lessons are only approximately ten pages long. For self-learners, the conciseness may be a bit intimidating or confusing, as grammar isn't really explained in great detail. The authors say in the introduction that they did so deliberately (for "implicit" acquisition of grammar), which is great if you have an instructor to answer detailed questions, and kind of sucks if you don't. For instance, animate and inanimate nouns are pluralized differently in Farsi. A few years ago, learning this particular aspect of grammar sparked lots of questions for my now-across-the-country Farsi instructor about whether the deceased, zombies, and cartoon characters were considered "alive" or not. My point is that sometimes, explicit understanding of grammar is useful; I personally prefer more information over less. I can't ignore information I don't need if it's not there to begin with - I can't even evaluate whether or not it's needed at all. Everyone learns differently; the authors don't seem to have considered that in their deliberate choice to structure the book as they did.
It's better than many texts in that it has a good amount of vocabulary and doesn't transliterate or use crazy phonetics systems instead of the Farsi alphabet. It does cover major points of grammar. Overall, it's okay, and it's better than a lot of textbooks out there, but I'm greatly disappointed. This certainly is **NOT** the book I'd want to pick up if I was a new student without an instructor.
The website to access the audio is here: [...] (click on the audio library tab)
Mostly, this book seems to condense quite a bit. I believe each lesson is intended to take about two weeks, but most lessons are only approximately ten pages long. For self-learners, the conciseness may be a bit intimidating or confusing, as grammar isn't really explained in great detail. The authors say in the introduction that they did so deliberately (for "implicit" acquisition of grammar), which is great if you have an instructor to answer detailed questions, and kind of sucks if you don't. For instance, animate and inanimate nouns are pluralized differently in Farsi. A few years ago, learning this particular aspect of grammar sparked lots of questions for my now-across-the-country Farsi instructor about whether the deceased, zombies, and cartoon characters were considered "alive" or not. My point is that sometimes, explicit understanding of grammar is useful; I personally prefer more information over less. I can't ignore information I don't need if it's not there to begin with - I can't even evaluate whether or not it's needed at all. Everyone learns differently; the authors don't seem to have considered that in their deliberate choice to structure the book as they did.
It's better than many texts in that it has a good amount of vocabulary and doesn't transliterate or use crazy phonetics systems instead of the Farsi alphabet. It does cover major points of grammar. Overall, it's okay, and it's better than a lot of textbooks out there, but I'm greatly disappointed. This certainly is **NOT** the book I'd want to pick up if I was a new student without an instructor.
The website to access the audio is here: [...] (click on the audio library tab)
4 of 4 people found the following review helpful
Hardly Helpful
23 Jun 2011
Format:Paperback|Amazon Verified Purchase
I'm extremely frustrated with this book. I don't see how this can be labeled as an "introductory" book. Most of it is in Persian. For example, there are exercises in the lessons, but they are completely in Persian without instructions in English as to what to do...In fact, I didn't even realize that they were exercises at first...Then later I realized by sounding out all of the words, that they were supposed to be exercises for the lessons...haha...Some of what is written is an example dialogue between two people...I figured that out after listening to the audio several times, while trying to read the book at the same time. Also, all of the audio is in Persian. Instead of saying something like "Lesson 2," or "repeat these phrases," people have to just figure out on their own what is going on in the audio. The audio files have to be downloaded from the Routledge website. I only found this out by looking up the book online. According to a note on the back of the book, there is supposed to be a companion website (different than the one for audio) with additional information. I'm assuming that maybe the answer key to the exercises would be there??...because there is none in the book!!! This is what I get when I go to the site: "Oops! You've arrived at a non-existent page."
3 of 3 people found the following review helpful
Very disappointed in this new release
11 July 2010
Format:Paperback|Amazon Verified Purchase
I agree with D. Amuz. I waited, too, for this book, and was very disappointed there was not an audio CD and working website link. Agreed, too, that without the audio and vowel diacritics, there is NO way this book can stand alone as a working text. Also, there is no description with regard to word and phrase accents. Too bad. Routledge could have done better. I still recommend Introduction to Persian by Thackston (4th edition), and be sure to order the key to the exercises.
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