Who here has actually learned Persian to a high level (>B2)?

[ASEAN]

Back in 2011, when he was 15 years old, Tim Doner learned Persian to a high level in only eight weeks. He attended a summer program at the University of Illinois (see video). I'm pretty sure he was already fluent in Arabic (both MSA and Egyptian) before starting his Persian studies. Doner just graduated from Harvard and earned a prize for his senior thesis which was titled, "Blood, Soil, and Oil: a Study of Fascism in Post-War Iran". His LinkedIn page says that his Persian is professional working proficiency and his personal website says that Persian is his most fluent language, second only to Arabic (MSA and Egyptian). Doner has also written a blurb on the back of author Peyman Nojoumian's Persian Learner series of books.

https://www.amazon.com/Persian-Learner- ... 0998863270

https://youtu.be/LYVP_E7GUNA

[kulaputra]

Back in 2011, when he was 15 years old, Tim Doner learned Persian to a high level in only eight weeks. He attended a summer program at the University of Illinois (see video). I'm pretty sure he was already fluent in Arabic (both MSA and Egyptian) before starting his Persian studies. Doner just graduated from Harvard and earned a prize for his senior thesis which was titled, "Blood, Soil, and Oil: a Study of Fascism in Post-War Iran". His LinkedIn page says that his Persian is professional working proficiency and his personal website says that Persian is his most fluent language, second only to Arabic (MSA and Egyptian). Doner has also written a blurb on the back of author Peyman Nojoumian's Persian Learner series of books.

https://www.amazon.com/Persian-Learner- ... 0998863270

https://youtu.be/LYVP_E7GUNA

Tim did not learn Persian to fluency in 8 weeks. He learned it maybe an A2 level. I've seen his videos from when he was in high school. I'm sure he speaks it fluently now though.

[Expugnator]

Forum member daristani could probably come up with more tips. We have some friends in common who have learned Persian to higher levels.

This thread is a gem. Are there really dubbed TV series in Persian? If so, the language now ranks higher in my hitlist.

[白田龍]

Are there really dubbed TV series in Persian? If so, the language now ranks higher in my hitlist.

I was able to find a huge amount of Turkish, plus some Indian and Korean Drama.

[Skynet]

So the questions I would be more interested in seeing answered are:

1. Is there a lot of contemporaryPersian media- primarily, TV shows, movies, and modern literature?
2. Culturally, how do Persian natives respond to learners of the language?

1. I am a complete neophyte (read: still illiterate), but I watch Manoto TV and follow Telegram channels (with English or French subtitles). You could watch native made-in-Iran content, but none of the Iranians that I know watch that, because it's Goebbels-grade propaganda. Also consider the two masterpieces by Asghar Farhadi, A Separation and The Salesman which won Oscar awards (Best Foreign Language Film).

2. In my experience, Iranians, Afghanis* and Tajikistanis** are effusive when they discover that someone wants to learn their language. In every single instance, they have offered me free language lessons.

* 80% of Aghans speak the Dari dialect of Persian, which contains fewer Arabic loan words than its Iranian counterpart.
** Tajikistanis speak a dialect that Iranians have told me is indistinguishable from theirs, but is written in the Cyrillic script.

[jonm]

Also consider the two masterpieces by Asghar Farhadi, A Separation and The Salesman which won Oscar awards (Best Foreign Language Film).

I still haven't seen The Salesman, but I agree that A Separation is excellent. I'm due for a rewatch actually, as I don't remember it in detail, just that I liked it a lot.

I also highly recommend the films of Abbas Kiarostami. Especially Close-Up, which is just a fascinating consideration of truth and fiction as well as a window into Iranian society. The other Kiarostami film I've seen in Persian is The Wind Will Carry Us, which I found a touch slow but also gorgeous and contemplative. It's got a "roomy" quality that I think would make it good for practicing Persian, since there would be time to think about a line of dialogue before getting to the next one. I haven't seen Ten yet, but it sounds like it would make for interesting Persian practice: ten scenes set in a taxi, with the same driver talking with different passengers as they drive around Tehran. Where Is the Friend's House? and Taste of Cherry are also supposed to be excellent.

And then these aren't in Persian, but I love Kiarostami's last two narrative films, Certified Copy and Like Someone in Love. Certified Copy is a good movie for polyglots, with an ongoing, sort of philosophical dialogue between two people (kind of like Before Sunset) that winds its way though English, French, and Italian.

[Gordafarin2]

Tajikistanis speak a dialect that Iranians have told me is indistinguishable from theirs

...ish. Very formal, bookish Tajik is equivalent to formal, bookish Persian. So they both can enjoy the poetry of Ferdowsi, Rudaki, Mowlana, etc. But the zaboni kucha has, naturally, drifted away, and is full of Russian, Uzbek, and other words. I did the American Councils course in Dushanbe many years ago, and it was a pretty big shock to realise, even though I spoke a decent level of conversational Tehrani Persian, that I could not understand my Tajik hosts' words for food, or good, or thank you or how are you!

While we're on the subject of film, Makhmalbaf's film Sokout (Silence) is set in Tajikistan - a beautiful film and nice examples of spoken Tajik. I've used it in my Subs2SRS deck.