Going through Narguess Farzad's "Teach Yourself Modern Persian" - my personal accountability thread

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Talha
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Going through Narguess Farzad's "Teach Yourself Modern Persian" - my personal accountability thread

Postby Talha » 2017-07-31, 8:56

Hi there guys, salam

First time post *clap* *clap*

I am British English first language based in London.

I have learnt Arabic to degree level and will start MA History on Islamicate world in September

So that's why I also want to make a start learning Persian this August

I have the Narguess Farzad book

Any help and advice appreciated.

Merci! :D

Talha
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Re: Narguess Farzad's Teach Yourself Modern Persian audio links?

Postby Talha » 2017-08-01, 18:38

Have now found audios! :)

As provided by Forum Rules, article #4 viewtopic.php?f=73&t=15451 I have created a space for myself for my study of the popular book. I am free this summer until the start of term in September. I would like to learn Persian to aid in my study of Islamicate histories and historiographies. I want to read texts in Persian contemporary and classical. I also want to speak the language and avoid the mistakes in my learning of MSA. My aim is to cover a unit a day.

My aim is for the thread to assist other learners of the book. My aim is for the thread to invite clarification where the book lacks it in some parts. It will be helpful to potential teachers of the language to identify failings in current course materials.

متشكرم

Talha
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Re: Short questions

Postby Talha » 2017-08-04, 16:56

Thanks eskandar.

I am a native UK English speaker who has learnt Arabic to a degree level. I am from a West-Bengal speaking family though I do not speak it myself. I understand a little. I recognise many of the Bengali words I heard growing up have origins in Persian.

The instinct is to read the letters shared with Arabic as Arabic sounds. Do you have any thoughts or advice about de-Arabising - so to speak - in my attempts to speak and learn the Persian language?

I would appreciate you hearing my reading of the Persian alphabet here:
http://vocaroo.com/i/s1mGpPwtN0jm

Talha
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Re: Short questions

Postby Talha » 2017-08-04, 17:09

Here are extended versions of my reading the alphabet with the vowels. I would appreciate your feedback on their accuracy.
ا ب پ ت ث
http://vocaroo.com/i/s1qKEOxvsGiY

ج چ ح خ
http://vocaroo.com/i/s0BrPsXbNrxr

Talha
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Re: Short questions

Postby Talha » 2017-08-04, 17:44

Taking above two groups to be A. and B.

C. د ذ ر ز ژ
http://vocaroo.com/i/s05TX2RJTpxg

D. س ش ص ض
http://vocaroo.com/i/s01AlaezIq06

E. ط ظ ع غ
http://vocaroo.com/i/s1Rvai96TNBI

F. ف ق ک گ
http://vocaroo.com/i/s0qjPWu6uIdm

G. ل م ن و ه ی
http://vocaroo.com/i/s11X0eH4g78V

Are these ok?

So basically the following groups of letters are pronounced the same but written differently, have I understood correctly?
1. ا ع
2. ت ط
3. ح ه
4. زذ ز ض ظ
5. غ ق

Having spent a long time trying to learn Arabic there is this weird resistance that kicks inside of me not to accept all those letters sound the same. I guess there is a whole technique to teach Persian to people who are Arabic speakers? I need to find a way of becoming comfortable with that. I guess once I do some more listening to spontaneous Persian I will stop resisting. Like the kind of clips found here: https://www.youtube.com/user/FarsiorPersian

eskandar
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Re: Short questions

Postby eskandar » 2017-08-05, 4:07

Talha wrote:Do you have any thoughts or advice about de-Arabising - so to speak - in my attempts to speak and learn the Persian language?

Keep doing what you've already been doing, that is, learn the specific sounds of the Persian letters rather than relying on Arabic. In addition to the different pronunciations of letters, the vowels may change between languages too. For example عنوان is 3inwaan in Arabic but onvaan in Persian. عنوان is also a good example of one of the many false friends between Arabic and Persian: it usually means 'address' in Arabic but 'title' in Persian. Sometimes the meanings are radically different (like جامعه which is 'university' in Arabic but 'society' in Persian), sometimes there's a difference in connotation or use (like استثمار , 'investment' in Arabic, 'exploitation' in Persian), sometimes a word is seen as archaic/obscure in one language but current and common in the other, etc. And sometimes they're totally false cognates, like توان (slowness in Arabic; power, ability in Persian. The Persian word is unrelated to the Arabic). Just something to be aware of and pay attention to as you go. I learned Persian first and then Arabic, so I often encountered the same issues.

I would appreciate you hearing my reading of the Persian alphabet here:
http://vocaroo.com/i/s1mGpPwtN0jm

It sounded like you pronounced the ح as in Arabic, rather than Persian which is like ه . You also pronounced ذ as in Arabic whereas in Persian it's like ز . Your emphatics (ص ض ط ظ) still sounded heavy, like Arabic - they should be pronounced as (س ز ت ز) in Persian. Your ع was also Arabic. In Persian it's pronounced as a hamza, except at the beginning of a word, where it's silent. Your ق sounded like you said گاف honestly which is how Turks are stereotyped as pronouncing Persian ;) Here is how it should be pronounced. Something else to know: if you are learning colloquial Persian, the pronunciation of ق and غ depends not on the writing, but on the position of the sound within a syllable. At the beginning of a word it's [ɢ] (whether قربان or غریب) but after a vowel it's like the Arabic غ (even if written ق). For more on that see this thread.

As far as the vowels go: I don't have the time to listen to everything carefully and comment on it, but I can say your main issue here is with 'a'. Your short 'a' (فتحه) needs to be more like this, that is, like the 'a' in US English "cat". Your long 'a' (الف مده) needs to be more like this, that is, like the 'o' in 'cot'. In Arabic, oftentimes the distinction between short and long 'a' is a matter of length; it's the same sound, but held longer. In Persian, they are two different sounds altogether, with the same length. Hope that helps.
Please correct my mistakes in any language.

Talha
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Correct pronunciation of alphabet/ phonemes of UK English native speaker and Arabic graduate - links to audios

Postby Talha » 2017-08-05, 16:12

Hi all, Garner good karma by helping correct my basic pronunciation to gain confidence in mastering one stage of learning a new language.

I am a London, UK English L1. I have studied Arabic to degree level. I am using the Narguess Farzad book supplemented with EasyArabic.com. I want to learn Persian to have access to texts contemporary and classical for my history master's of the Islamicate world. I also want to be able to communicate with people too.

I recognise there will be regional variants. I want to aware be of differences but this is a request in practical pedagogy for a beginner, not fieldwork in phonetics. I want to reach a point I will be understood.

Further to the posts here:http://forum.unilang.org/viewtopic.php?f=73&t=26311&start=2420#p1081525, I am recording again my reading of the alphabet along with the vowels in light of eskander's guidance.

alef to kha
http://vocaroo.com/i/s1f8av8Sp5BM
daal to zey
http://vocaroo.com/i/s0tWEm9gCuwe
zhe
http://vocaroo.com/i/s1YHH6fj9pyB
siin to zad
http://vocaroo.com/i/s0ftgPYvy5gL
ain to qaf
http://vocaroo.com/i/s1oO4ouuBC2Y
kaf to yey
http://vocaroo.com/i/s0BuVQqBzQZN
Some random words:
Image
best images for websites
http://vocaroo.com/i/s0MixjJGvBRG

Native/ fluent speakers, would you understand me?

خيلي ممنون
:)

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Re: Correct pronunciation of alphabet/ phonemes of UK English native speaker and Arabic graduate - links to audios

Postby eskandar » 2017-08-06, 4:27

I gave these all a quick listen. Your long 'a' sounds a lot better. The short 'a' is still not exactly right for Tehrani Persian (which is what I assumed you were going for) - listen to the vowel here to see if you get the difference - but in any case you would be understood perfectly. It sounds more like the Afghan Persian short 'a' which is perfectly fine too. Most of your consonants sound great now. When doing ظ it sounds like you did them all correctly except ظا which you pronounced 'heavy' as in Arabic, but I'm sure that was just a mistake. (Like you did ظَ ظِ ظُ etc. correctly, and just slipped on ظا). Your غ and ق were kind of all over the place and some of them sounded like گ .

From the image, I tried to provide the correct pronunciations (in simple transliteration) and transcribe what I heard you saying when they were incorrect:

پارو is paaroo not paarow
سوپ is soop (from English 'soup' and pronounced similarly) not sowp
کاشی is kaashee not kaashay
کتاب ketaab not kitaab
مریم - the only issue here was with the فتحه as I described above in this post
امروز emrooz not imrooz
ایزد eezad not eezaad
کوشش kooshesh not koshesh

Again, although these would sound funny, most would still be understood. And all of what I wrote applies to Iranian Persian since that's what the Narguess Farzad book and easypersian.com teach. Many of your pronunciations would be OK for Afghan Persian. The equivalent is something like my experience with people who speak English in non-Anglophone countries (like the way people speak English in Paris, for example): some of their vowels are off, and they mix between American and UK pronunciations sometimes seemingly at random, but none of it really gets in the way of understanding them.
Please correct my mistakes in any language.

Talha
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Gender:male

Re: Correct pronunciation of alphabet/ phonemes of UK English native speaker and Arabic graduate - links to audios

Postby Talha » 2017-08-06, 13:04

Thanks eskander for moving the posts into one thread. I hope the information will be helpful to others in this format. Any improvements on my part is as a result of your amazing service on this forum.

So, first the Farzad audio of the words I'm trying to imitate.
http://vocaroo.com/i/s1iV6PFfgHR8

The short 'a' is still not exactly right for Tehrani Persian (which is what I assumed you were going for)


The truth is I don't know which type of Persian I'm aiming at. Whatever is expected for a non-native learner to achieve I'm happy to aim for. There is a point as a beginner learner when one wants to remain ignorant of matters to avoid over-complication. The skill of teaching is to know what information to reveal to a learner and when.

Again, although these would sound funny, most would still be understood. And all of what I wrote applies to Iranian Persian since that's what the Narguess Farzad book and easypersian.com teach. Many of your pronunciations would be OK for Afghan Persian. The equivalent is something like my experience with people who speak English in non-Anglophone countries (like the way people speak English in Paris, for example): some of their vowels are off, and they mix between American and UK pronunciations sometimes seemingly at random, but none of it really gets in the way of understanding them.


So this is the thing: if I can at the beginning of my studies focus on pronunciation to sound as least funny as possible, the better as an investment of my time. There does come a point where as a non-native I will not get pass my 'difference' but I otherwise understand other speakers and am understood in turn. We meet people every day at our places or work and study who communicate complex ideas and trivial banter also in L2 English. Their accent is a charm.

It appears you are saying I am within the phoneme range with all my pronunciations (not like the L2 Arabic learner who still can't differentiate in pronouncing دل and ضل) apart from ق غ گ. I will focus on them in my next post.

EDIT: Something must be done about how on Chrome when you preview/edit a post all the Arabic and Persian characters disappear. I have raised this on the main forums.

Talha
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Re: Correct pronunciation of alphabet/ phonemes of UK English native speaker and Arabic graduate - links to audios

Postby Talha » 2017-08-06, 14:36

From what I understood from of the discussion at https://forum.wordreference.com/threads ... n.2791810/ relevant to me is that ق & غ are pronounced as [ɢ] but sometimes like the Arabic ghayn if in between vowels.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oQrmm4oLR3Q

Please advise how to distinguish from گ.

I also need to work on my fatha sound but I will get to that later.

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Re: Correct pronunciation of alphabet/ phonemes of UK English native speaker and Arabic graduate - links to audios

Postby eskandar » 2017-08-06, 22:03

Talha wrote:Please advise how to distinguish from گ.

In the video you posted, can you hear the difference between this sound and a normal 'g' گ ? Since you expressed earlier a desire to avoid technical linguistic explanations I'll try to describe the difference in layman's terms as best as I can. The normal 'g' sound is pronounced with the tongue at the back of the roof of the mouth; this is the same place that 'k' ک and 'kh' خ are pronounced. Paying careful attention to the position of your tongue, you'll notice that if you say ga ga ga ka ka ka kha kha kha, your tongue doesn't really move. Now pronounce an Arabic q ق and you'll notice that your tongue moves further back, to the uvula. The sound [ɢ] used in Persian for ق غ is pronounced with the tongue in the same in the same position as the Arabic [q] ق .

Now, what is the difference between the Arabic [q] and the Persian [ɢ]? Simply put, the vocal cords vibrate when you pronounce [ɢ] but not when you pronounce [q].

Put your fingers over your throat and pronounce a drawn-out ssssssssss. Your throat will feel still. Now pronounce a drawn-out zzzzzzzz. You should feel your vocal cords buzzing. That's the difference right there. Now pronounce a drawn-out خخخخخخخخخخ - notice how they don't vibrate - and then an Arabic drawn-out غغغغغغغغغغغغ - you'll feel the vibration. So your goal in trying to pronounce [ɢ] is to pronounce an Arabic [q] and then get your vocal cords to vibrate, which will produce [ɢ].

If all else fails-- just pronounce the Arabic [q], and the Arabic غ in between vowels (as in آقا) and you'll be fine.
Please correct my mistakes in any language.

Talha
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Re: Correct pronunciation of alphabet/ phonemes of UK English native speaker and Arabic graduate - links to audios

Postby Talha » 2017-08-09, 15:26

In light of above, especially to say the Persian ق as an Arabic ق but voiced, I record my attempts with the following words قالي - قوري - فقط - قرمز - آقا - گفتگو - بزرگ - گفت

http://vocaroo.com/i/s1v9S5mlzQ5u

Please advise on accuracy. Kindly grade each word attempt on a scale of 1 - 10, where 1 :nope: is equivalent of an Arabic learner saying a ض as a د or a ظ as a ذ and 10 :yep: is the letter I intend is understood clearly.

متشكرم

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Re: Correct pronunciation of alphabet/ phonemes of UK English native speaker and Arabic graduate - links to audios

Postby eskandar » 2017-08-10, 8:01

قالی - 9
قوری 7 - the ق wasn't quite as correct as in the previous word, and the long 'oo' (و) was a bit off as well
فقط - 5 - the first syllable (فَ) was good. The ق is in between two vowels here so it should be pronounced 'faghat' (فغت). The second syllable sounded too Arabic - the fatha should be the same as in the first syllable, and the ط should be pronounced like ت . Listen here.
قرمز - 7 - pretty good but the qaaf sounded a bit too much like the Arabic [q]
آقا - 5 - the long a in the first syllable was not correct and the qaaf should be pronounced as a ghayn here (see my comments on فقط above). The second long a was good; just make the first long a sound the same. Listen here.
گفتگو - 8 - consonants are fine, but the ضمه needs to be more like an 'o', here it sounds a bit like the Arabic short 'u'
بزرگ - 9 - better but same as above
گفت - 9 - same as above
Please correct my mistakes in any language.

Talha
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Re: Correct pronunciation of alphabet/ phonemes of UK English native speaker and Arabic graduate - links to audios

Postby Talha » 2017-08-10, 12:27

Code: Select all

فقط - 5 - the first syllable (فَ) was good. The ق is in between two vowels here so it should be pronounced 'faghat' (فغت). The second syllable sounded too Arabic - the fatha should be the same as in the first syllable, and the ط should be pronounced like ت . Listen here.


Just with regards to the Persian فقط this is the clip from the Farzad book. To my ear it sounds tantamount to an Arabic ق. I don't hear the Arabic غ. A regional issue?

http://vocaroo.com/i/s07sPXpihl0n

Talha
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Re: Correct pronunciation of alphabet/ phonemes of UK English native speaker and Arabic graduate - links to audios

Postby Talha » 2017-08-10, 12:48

I thought it also germane to pronunciation practice to record the exercises and new content from Farzad Unit 01.

[*]Days of the Week
http://vocaroo.com/i/s0Ey2jw9JK6n

[*]Months of the Year
http://vocaroo.com/i/s1jjZixKnTlF
Damn, those آ sound too close to an Arabic ع. What I am trying to do is get that "groaning" two-sound unit you alluded to in the earlier post.

[*]Seasons
http://vocaroo.com/i/s1cY9SIqXB6I

[*]Ex 2a
Image
http://vocaroo.com/i/s0yYfaOkWW9T

[*]Ex 2b
Image
http://vocaroo.com/i/s0DXtj1sWdr0

Advice on their accuracy appreciated especially as well with regards to cadence, stress and rhythm. There's a lot there so I understand if only general pointers are given.

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Re: Correct pronunciation of alphabet/ phonemes of UK English native speaker and Arabic graduate - links to audios

Postby eskandar » 2017-08-11, 7:21

Talha wrote:Just with regards to the Persian فقط this is the clip from the Farzad book. To my ear it sounds tantamount to an Arabic ق. I don't hear the Arabic غ. A regional issue?

You are right; in the clip it's pronounced as [ɢ] (closer to [q] than the Arabic غ ). This can be a regional variation or even a personal one. I won't correct this anymore since some people (even in Tehran) do pronounce ق between vowels as [ɢ].

Talha wrote:[*]Months of the Year
http://vocaroo.com/i/s1jjZixKnTlF
Damn, those آ sound too close to an Arabic ع. What I am trying to do is get that "groaning" two-sound unit you alluded to in the earlier post.

Sounds like you missed the final ت in اردیبهشت . Some of the fathas are still a little off - for example, in شهریور the first fatha is good but the second one sounds maybe like an Arabic fatha or something. The آ in آبان and آذر do indeed sound too much like an Arabic ع , and you pronounced آذر as if it were آذار . Just pronounce the initial آ exactly as you would if there were a consonant before it; in other words, pronounce آبان as if you were saying تابان and then remove the ت , if that helps.

Some pointers on 2a: your kasras are also too much like the Arabic sound; they should be more like 'e' [ɛ] than 'i', as in the first vowel in English "ever". Also, the final ه in نه is silent; the word is pronounced [na], not [nah].

2b: Don't forget that و is 'v' in Persian, not 'w' as in Arabic, so in یک چای و یک شیرینی it's [va].
Please correct my mistakes in any language.

Talha
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Gender:male

Re: Going through Narguess Farzad's "Teach Yourself Modern Persian" - my personal accountability thread

Postby Talha » 2017-08-11, 18:28

Unit 2
Farzad numbers audio http://vocaroo.com/i/s1BHWVI9KIu8

My attempts:
http://vocaroo.com/i/s0jNXUODf6HH
& 10s and 100s
http://vocaroo.com/i/s14ZYbsed2mZ

You know how in *handwritten* Arabic the 2's and 3's look slightly different to their print version (as in image), does that happen in Persian too?

I hope my handwritten numbers are ok.

Image

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Re: Going through Narguess Farzad's "Teach Yourself Modern Persian" - my personal accountability thread

Postby eskandar » 2017-08-11, 22:57

Your numbers sound OK. The handwritten numbers at the top of the image look fine. I don't think the bottom ones (the 2 and 3) are written like that in Persian, but I'm not completely sure.
Please correct my mistakes in any language.

Talha
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Gender:male

Re: Going through Narguess Farzad's "Teach Yourself Modern Persian" - my personal accountability thread

Postby Talha » 2017-08-12, 16:06

Quick question: In Arabic the ideal is to write the و straight before the word following it so
الكتاب والقلم
rather than
الكتاب و القلم

Does the same apply in Persian?

Talha
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Re: Going through Narguess Farzad's "Teach Yourself Modern Persian" - my personal accountability thread

Postby Talha » 2017-08-12, 16:50

Image
Ex 1.2 http://vocaroo.com/i/s081HYXD9Afh
Ex 1.4 http://vocaroo.com/i/s10bQXq0ZQ7G

Image
charbi also "fat" in Bengali.

Image
Ex 2.1 http://vocaroo.com/i/s1WE2XVPd8MF

Image
morghi Bengali for "chicken"
bozorg similar to Bengali word for "great person" in religious sense

Image


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