Persian Study Group

Moderator:eskandar

vijayjohn
Language Forum Moderator
Posts:27056
Joined:2013-01-10, 8:49
Real Name:Vijay John
Gender:male
Location:Austin, Texas, USA
Country:USUnited States (United States)
Contact:
Persian Study Group

Postby vijayjohn » 2018-08-19, 21:49

!خوش آمدید! فارسی بخوانیم
Welcome (to the Persian Study Group)! Let's study Persian!

Anyone is welcome to join this group.

...So, now what do we do? :silly:

Should we just work through Colloquial Persian together? Somehow, the Colloquial series seems pretty popular on this forum (perhaps in part because Routledge has released all the audio for free!). If you're in favor of this option but don't have access to the book/audio, just let me know (either by PM or through this thread, or even e-mail if you have my e-mail), and I'll make sure you do!

Alternatively, we could:

a. work through another resource, possibly with audio (options with audio include Teach Yourself Modern Persian (2004), Living Language Farsi, Beginner's Dari Persian, and http://www.easypersian.com/), or a grammar (without audio :P),

b. try reading together through an old first-grade textbook I have that's missing two pages (I've already read all the rest of it but don't mind going through it if anyone wants), or perhaps my favorite option...

c. try translating and/or learning words through songs.

What do y'all think? :)

User avatar
Antea
Posts:3954
Joined:2015-08-23, 10:53
Real Name:c
Gender:female

Re: Persian Study Group

Postby Antea » 2018-08-19, 21:52

Hey :yep:

User avatar
Antea
Posts:3954
Joined:2015-08-23, 10:53
Real Name:c
Gender:female

Re: Persian Study Group

Postby Antea » 2018-08-19, 22:03

I don’t know. Last time I started Persian, it was with Assimil. But I remember I had some problems with the verbs, so I had to look for some resources online with a more detailed explanation. So what do you think? Is it well explained in the Colloquial book? Or would it be too boring and better jump into the songs and “sálvese quien pueda”? :hmm:

vijayjohn
Language Forum Moderator
Posts:27056
Joined:2013-01-10, 8:49
Real Name:Vijay John
Gender:male
Location:Austin, Texas, USA
Country:USUnited States (United States)
Contact:

Re: Persian Study Group

Postby vijayjohn » 2018-08-19, 22:30

Wait a minute, what the...The Colloquial book doesn't even have Persian script in it! :shock: It looks terrible. (Though it does seem to explain verbs).

OK, now I'm leaning pretty strongly towards TY Persian instead. It does have Persian script and also explains the verbs, albeit gradually. Feel free to ask your questions about verbs here, too, though! Maybe some of us can help! :) (Or maybe eskandar can :P).

ceid donn
Posts:2256
Joined:2008-02-15, 0:58
Country:USUnited States (United States)

Re: Persian Study Group

Postby ceid donn » 2018-08-19, 22:36

vijayjohn wrote:Wait a minute, what the...The Colloquial book doesn't even have Persian script in it! :shock: It looks terrible. (Though it does seem to explain verbs).

OK, now I'm leaning pretty strongly towards TY Persian instead. It does have Persian script and also explains the verbs, albeit gradually. Feel free to ask your questions about verbs here, too, though! Maybe some of us can help! :) (Or maybe eskandar can :P).


I was just going to ask you if you really wanted to use CP because of that. I have TY Persian already, so I could use that. I wouldn't be able to go too quickly though because of my other languages.

vijayjohn
Language Forum Moderator
Posts:27056
Joined:2013-01-10, 8:49
Real Name:Vijay John
Gender:male
Location:Austin, Texas, USA
Country:USUnited States (United States)
Contact:

Re: Persian Study Group

Postby vijayjohn » 2018-08-19, 23:01

That should be fine. I could use a slower pace myself anyway. Besides, if I can go slow even with Tamil (even after having already gone through about half the course we're going through now in the Tamil Study Group), I can certainly go slow with Persian, too! :lol:

But also, I get the impression we may be able to skip some of the chapters in TY altogether (specifically the ones that are only about grammar, i.e. chapter 2 and all the grammar reference units).

ceid donn
Posts:2256
Joined:2008-02-15, 0:58
Country:USUnited States (United States)

Re: Persian Study Group

Postby ceid donn » 2018-08-19, 23:11

www.easypersian.com has be redone since the last I time looked at it. It still looks like a very good course, if that's easier for the group to use. I personally would prefer TY Persian since I have a physical copy,.

It's been maybe 7 years since I last really studied any Persian, so I will need to study grammar points.

vijayjohn
Language Forum Moderator
Posts:27056
Joined:2013-01-10, 8:49
Real Name:Vijay John
Gender:male
Location:Austin, Texas, USA
Country:USUnited States (United States)
Contact:

Re: Persian Study Group

Postby vijayjohn » 2018-08-19, 23:26

I actually kind of prefer TY, too, mainly because it actually has dialogues. Good ol' Hassan Jan over at easypersian is sweet and all, but...all the translation exercises just grow a bit tiresome for me after a while. :P Of course, what I'd really love to do is just listen to lots and lots of songs, maybe try to actually practice my Persian, and almost certainly pester our poor beloved mod with lots of questions and/or attempts at translating song lyrics into English.

EDIT: Oh, and yeah, you can definitely go through the grammar parts, too. No rush. :)

User avatar
Antea
Posts:3954
Joined:2015-08-23, 10:53
Real Name:c
Gender:female

Re: Persian Study Group

Postby Antea » 2018-08-19, 23:33

Maybe we could do some easy songs, too :ohwell:

ceid donn
Posts:2256
Joined:2008-02-15, 0:58
Country:USUnited States (United States)

Re: Persian Study Group

Postby ceid donn » 2018-08-19, 23:47

OK. I'll pass on this study group then so you guys can work on song translations.

User avatar
Antea
Posts:3954
Joined:2015-08-23, 10:53
Real Name:c
Gender:female

Re: Persian Study Group

Postby Antea » 2018-08-19, 23:49

Don’t keep me wrong. I also have to start from the beginning :roll:

vijayjohn
Language Forum Moderator
Posts:27056
Joined:2013-01-10, 8:49
Real Name:Vijay John
Gender:male
Location:Austin, Texas, USA
Country:USUnited States (United States)
Contact:

Re: Persian Study Group

Postby vijayjohn » 2018-08-19, 23:54

We could do both! All three of us can slowly work through TY, and Antea and I at least can also work on songs.

Just a few questions, though: When do we start with TY, and what pace do we want to go at? Or at least, when should we get our first bit/assignment from TY done? :)

Also, Antea, any ideas for songs? I know a bunch of songs in Persian, but I'm not sure whether they're easy per se. The only song I can think of that might be easy is the Persian birthday song. :P

EDIT: Oh, and I'm curious what some other people who might be interested in this group have to say. :whistle:

User avatar
Antea
Posts:3954
Joined:2015-08-23, 10:53
Real Name:c
Gender:female

Re: Persian Study Group

Postby Antea » 2018-08-20, 0:07

I am sure that you know more beautiful songs, so you can choose the ones you prefer :yep: Translating them, will be a good exercise

vijayjohn
Language Forum Moderator
Posts:27056
Joined:2013-01-10, 8:49
Real Name:Vijay John
Gender:male
Location:Austin, Texas, USA
Country:USUnited States (United States)
Contact:

Re: Persian Study Group

Postby vijayjohn » 2018-08-20, 2:41

Okay! :D Here's the first Persian song I ever posted on this forum. My brother's friend's dad recorded a bunch of Persian songs on a few audiocassettes and gave them to me. This is the first song on one of those cassettes. It's called مرد تنها, which I believe means something like 'loner':
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aP1D-tISiEc
These are the lyrics in Persian:
► Show Spoiler

My attempt at a translation:
► Show Spoiler

User avatar
Osias
Posts:9754
Joined:2007-09-09, 17:38
Real Name:Osias Junior
Gender:male
Location:Vitória
Country:BRBrazil (Brasil)
Contact:

Re: Persian Study Group

Postby Osias » 2018-08-21, 22:51

Thanks! I would wanderlust for Persian now if I wasn't already. Keep posting those!
2017 est l'année du (fr) et de l'(de) pour moi. Parle avec moi en eux, s'il te plait.

User avatar
voron
Language Forum Moderator
Posts:4945
Joined:2007-07-15, 3:29
Real Name:Igor
Gender:male
Country:TRTurkey (Türkiye)

Re: Persian Study Group

Postby voron » 2018-08-21, 23:14

Can you guys gloss first 4 lines of this song for me:
https://lyricstranslate.com/en/به-خاطر- ... se-me.html

I read the Persian grammar article on Wiki and I thought it would be easy to parse the lyrics, but I can't make heads or tails of the grammar. In particular, what is this سر which is repeated thrice in the first 4 lines?

eskandar
Language Forum Moderator
Posts:3093
Joined:2006-12-15, 8:27

Re: Persian Study Group

Postby eskandar » 2018-08-23, 0:04

I can't spend much time on Unilang these days but I will definitely try to keep an eye on the Persian forum and help as much as I can! So happy to see some activity here again!

vijayjohn wrote:They tell this man, "Oh, she's crazy!"

They tell this man [ie. me], "hey, [you're] crazy!"
آهای is vocative, so it's more likely not referring to a third person.

Having written this over my forehead,
May I burn; this is fate! :?:

He/she has written this on my forehead:
"I must burn, this is fate."
NB: in Persian language/culture, one's fate is said to be written across one's forehead, hence the etymology of the word سرنوشت.

I'm waiting, I'm waiting happily.

I think "I'm waiting, I'm waiting for happiness" is what's meant.

voron wrote:Can you guys gloss first 4 lines of this song for me:

I haven't tried to formally gloss anything in over a decade so apologies if I get some of the terminology wrong!

نگاهی‌ عمیق به تقویم سررسیدش
negaahi amiq be taqvim-e sarresid-ash
look-INDF deep to calendar=EZ deadline-3SG POSS
"a deep look into his calendar"

فهمید وقت تفریح سر رسیده
fahmid vaqt-e tafrih sar-reside
PST-understand-3SG time=EZ fun PRF-end
"he understood his time's come to an end"

سر در گم تو کوچه‌ها سرگردونه
sar dar gom tu kuche-haa sargardun e
head in lost in street-PL wandering COP
"bewildered, he's wandering the streets"

کاش میشد خدا قدیما رو برگردونه
kaash mishod khodaa qadimaa ro bargardune
if-only IMPERF-become-3SG God old-PL ACC SBJV-return-CAUS
"if only God could bring the old [times] back"

I'm sure I messed the glossing up but hopefully that gives you the idea. It's a bit of wordplay with different words involving سر (head):

سررسید - this has way too many meanings to explain but in this context تقویم سررس taqvim-e sarresid is a calendar or day planner (literally a "calendar of deadlines" but that isn't idiomatic in English so I just translated it as "calendar")
سر رسیده - from the verb سر رسیدن sar residan "to come to an end" (literally "to come to [a] head")
سر در گم sar dar gom an expression meaning bewildered, perplexed (literally "head in lost")
سرگردون sargardun (colloquial for سرگردان), "wandering, vagrant" but also "distressed, perplexed" (literally "head rolling/spinning")
Please correct my mistakes in any language.

User avatar
voron
Language Forum Moderator
Posts:4945
Joined:2007-07-15, 3:29
Real Name:Igor
Gender:male
Country:TRTurkey (Türkiye)

Re: Persian Study Group

Postby voron » 2018-08-24, 7:46

Thank you Eskandar!

vijayjohn
Language Forum Moderator
Posts:27056
Joined:2013-01-10, 8:49
Real Name:Vijay John
Gender:male
Location:Austin, Texas, USA
Country:USUnited States (United States)
Contact:

Re: Persian Study Group

Postby vijayjohn » 2018-08-26, 10:15

OOOOOOO rojbaaaaaş! :D
(dangles bottle of Shiraz in front of voron's eyes)
You are feeling sleepy...sleeeepyy...when I snap my fingers...you will join this group and start studying Persian.
*snap!* :twisted: :mrgreen:

Eskandar bhai, thanks for all your help, and really? That's all I got wrong? Maybe I know Persian better than I thought! :shock: Or maybe this song is just that easy. :P

Also, seeing this picture on Wikipedia and reading a bit about it made me realize that there is a closer connection between you and me than I would have ever imagined:
[EDIT: I'm not entirely sure which image this originally was, but it no longer displays, and I can't figure out how to put it back in without getting an error].
These are excerpts from the Tharisapalli copper plates, a land grant to Christians in Kerala, and at least some of the signatures in it are in Pahlavi script. Apparently, there were also a lot of Persian-speaking traders in Kerala at the time. I'd think at least some Malayalee Jews also must have been able to speak Persian since they were middlemen.

The writing around this cross in a church just 27 km (about 16.78 miles) north of my parents' hometown is also in Pahlavi script: https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/ ... iption.jpg.

Osias, thanks to you, too, and here's some more wanderlust fuel for you! :mrgreen: A different UniLanger managed to introduce me to each one of the songs below by posting it.

This is "Bibi Sanam Janam," a traditional Dari love song from Coke Studio (performed in Pakistan by Zeb & Haniya), except jazzed up/modernized like every other song in Coke Studio apparently is. Turning on CC gives you the lyrics in both (I think maybe a bit misspelled :P) Persian script and Roman script along with a translation into English:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GuY-2sHJYhg
Is تاج قرغان a misspelling/alternative spelling/folk etymology or something for Tashkorghan? Is it really pronounced that way?

This is "Havar Havar," a not-so-traditional Persian song by Kourosh Yaghmaei, from the year just before the Iranian Revolution. The video description has the lyrics, and the first comment has a translation into English:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TnPHhaFgDzU
Lyrics:
► Show Spoiler

Translation:
► Show Spoiler

And this is an Afghan song called "Kabootar" and sung by Habib Qaderi and the very first song in the songs thread, courtesy of a certain former user:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OUcQSBOAp5g
The transliterated lyrics are available here, but no one seems to have written them in Persian script accurately online, so I'll try doing that myself instead by taking a misspelled version of the lyrics and trying to correct the typos :P
► Show Spoiler

This song is so much fun to sing, yet I'm having the darnedest time trying to make sense of the lyrics. Here's my attempt at a translation anyway, though:
► Show Spoiler


I need a new vocab list so bad! (Some of these are words I've definitely looked up before but never really remembered):

سنگی - stony
رود - river (not a word in any of these songs, but I need to remember this word or else I may never remember that دریا means 'sea' in Persian! :doggy:)
سرگردان - vagabond, wanderer; distressed, perplexed
آشیان - nest
آهای - hey!
گشتن - to travel, revolve, roll, etc. (To my brain, this verb is so common in Persian it's practically a throwaway verb. I normally ignore it whenever I see it because I never remember what it means. The present tense forms have always sort of confused me because they look like past tense forms of کردن!)
پیشانی - forehead
باید - must
سرنوشت - fate
گذاشتن - to pass by (lol I should've known this from Urdu)
شادی - happiness (duh! Persian 'happiness' > Hindi/Urdu 'wedding' just like Sanskrit 'happiness' > Malayalam 'wedding')
بادی - windy
عمیق - deep
تقویم - calendar
سررسید - deadline
سر رسیدن - to come to a head!
تفریح - fun
سر در گم - bewildered, perplexed
بها - worth
بجز - except
غربت - alien, feeling like a foreigner
تاب - lustre
شاداب - lively
بیدار - awake
بیدار کردن - to awaken
رخ - face
همچو - like
نازک - fragile
اندیشه - fear
معتدل - temperate
چون - because
ریشه - root
خشکیدن - to dry up
هوار - hail(?)
بیزار بودن‎‎ - to hate
حسرت - wistful
طاقت - endurance
سی مو - to me?
قدوم - footstep?
بزاره - may (s)he put?? (What's the infinitive form of this verb?)
ناز - cute
شو - شب
رات = راهت؟
پیش - front
مبتلا - afflicted
بام - roof
تور - mesh, net
چیره - victorious
چشمک - wink
چک چک - drop by drop
نازیدن - to show off
زر - gold
لب - lip
تار - cloudy
سو - direction? sight?
شان - dignity(?)
نصیب - portion; destiny(?)
بو - smell, odor?
خو - character?
پره - spoke?
ناله - groan, complaint
کلکین - window (like کھڑکی in Urdu! :o)
مزاج - temperament
خار - thorn?
Last edited by vijayjohn on 2022-01-28, 5:46, edited 3 times in total.

księżycowy

Re: Persian Study Group

Postby księżycowy » 2018-08-26, 10:26

What have you done, Vijay! :evil:


Return to “Persian/Farsi (فارسی)”

Who is online

Users browsing this forum: No registered users and 4 guests