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

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

Postby kulaputra » Fri Jun 22, 2018 6:02 pm

Persian seems to be one of the rarer languages studied on this forum relative to the amount of speakers it has. Is there anyone on this forum who's studied (as a non-native) the language to a high level? What were your experiences? I've been eyeing the language for a while and I'd be interested in learning more. People who have studied it to a lower level can also comment, although I'm particularly interested in people who are fairly proficient in it.
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Iha śāriputra: rūpaṃ śūnyatā śūnyataiva rūpaṃ; rūpān na pṛthak śūnyatā śunyatāyā na pṛthag rūpaṃ; yad rūpaṃ sā śūnyatā; ya śūnyatā tad rūpaṃ.

--Heart Sutra

Please correct any of my non-native languages, if needed!

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

Postby Querneus » Fri Jun 22, 2018 6:40 pm

I haven't noticed any advanced Persian learners in this forum, but in another forum I'm in there's one active user that did reach a very high level in his non-native Persian. Enough to use it for his PhD literary research, if I recall correctly. I'll send you the details over a private message.
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Speakeasy
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Re: Who here has actually learned Persian to a high level (>B2)?

Postby Speakeasy » Fri Jun 22, 2018 7:20 pm

A search of the A Language Learners' forum (LLORG) suggests that a few members have been studying Farsi/Persian and related languages. It would appear that much of the discussion takes place in members' logs.

The previous forum, How-To-Learn-Any-Language (HTLAL) contains numerous discussion threads of Farsi/Persian and related languages. A quick survey of the discussions suggests that, while many of the members interested in these languages were working the at the Beginner's Level, a small number of them had achieved an Intermediate Level. Very few of them seem to have registered on this forum and, of those who have, even fewer have been noticeably active.

G-search, "Persian" - HTLAL
http://how-to-learn-any-language.com/forum/search_form.asp?cx=partner-pub-2912224114831178%3Ach0jagxs7xl&cof=FORID%3A9&ie=UTF-8&q=Persian&sa=Search&siteurl=how-to-learn-any-language.com%2Fforum%2Fsearch_form.asp&ref=how-to-learn-any-language.com%2Fe%2Findex.html&ss=1799j2994341j3

G-search, "Farsi" - HTLAL
http://how-to-learn-any-language.com/forum/search_form.asp?cx=partner-pub-2912224114831178%3Ach0jagxs7xl&cof=FORID%3A9&ie=UTF-8&q=Farsi&sa=Search&siteurl=how-to-learn-any-language.com%2Fforum%2Fsearch_form.asp&ref=how-to-learn-any-language.com%2Fe%2Findex.html&ss=
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白田龍
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Re: Who here has actually learned Persian to a high level (>B2)?

Postby 白田龍 » Fri Jun 22, 2018 7:45 pm

I started working with Assimil, Routledge, Teach Yourself and some others to a lesser extent... then I moved to reading movie subtitles, adding example sentences to SRS, and watching tons serials dubbed in farsi, when my listening was good enough I switched to watich mostly native serials. Nowadays I'm improving my vocabulary by narrow-reading novels and SRS.
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Re: Who here has actually learned Persian to a high level (>B2)?

Postby Teango » Fri Jun 22, 2018 7:46 pm

There were 572 members on our old forum (HTLAL) who listed Persian as a language they actively studied or knew to some degree in their profile, and of these members, 99 claimed to possess basic fluency or above (basic fluency: 26, advanced fluency: 17, native fluency: 56). We even had a Persian TAC team (beginner-intermediate level, I believe) competing back in 2014!

I recall that Professor Argüelles (who used to post under the moniker Ardaschir in the early years of the forum) provided an interesting and comprehensive overview of the Persian language in one of his many excellent posts in which he claimed, "Although I have a passionate love for and attachment to many languages, still, if I were pressed to choose one all time favorite, it would probably be Persian" (here's a link to the rest of his post in case you're interested: Persian (Farsi) overview [HTLAL]).
Last edited by Teango on Sat Jun 23, 2018 5:05 am, edited 2 times in total.
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kulaputra
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Re: Who here has actually learned Persian to a high level (>B2)?

Postby kulaputra » Sat Jun 23, 2018 2:01 am

I've read that post by Professor Arguelles. It was very useful, and I greatly admire the professor, but I have significantly less interest in the literary side of a language then he is. To be sure, Rumi and Hafez and Saadi are amongst the reasons I have considered starting to study Persian, but I'm also much more interested in oral communication with living Persians and exploring modern Persian cultural "output." 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?

and so on; questions of that nature.
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Iha śāriputra: rūpaṃ śūnyatā śūnyataiva rūpaṃ; rūpān na pṛthak śūnyatā śunyatāyā na pṛthag rūpaṃ; yad rūpaṃ sā śūnyatā; ya śūnyatā tad rūpaṃ.

--Heart Sutra

Please correct any of my non-native languages, if needed!

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

Postby vonPeterhof » Sat Jun 23, 2018 7:51 am

kulaputra wrote:1. Is there a lot of contemporaryPersian media- primarily, TV shows, movies, and modern literature?
I'm not terribly knowledgeable about these things, but I hear that Iranian cinema, especially something called the Iranian New Wave, is kind of a big deal among cinephiles.

Here's where I first heard about it:
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Re: Who here has actually learned Persian to a high level (>B2)?

Postby Kamlari » Sat Jun 23, 2018 9:47 am

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Frei lebt, wer sterben kann.

J'aime les nuages... les nuages qui passent...
雲は天才である

1. There’s only one rule to rule them all:
There are no Rule(r)s.
2. LISTEN L2, read L1. (Long texts)
3. Pronunciation.
4. Delayed recitation.

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

Postby 白田龍 » Mon Jun 25, 2018 7:05 am

There many good movies and tv serials from Iran. As for other media, everything seems to be under influence of regime/shia ideology, that gives a creepy feeling to it. But there some persian content channels based outside of Iran that are nice (https://www.manototv.com has most of its shows free on the site, some on youtube too). As for literature, I have managed do download over 1000 novels in epub format.
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Re: Who here has actually learned Persian to a high level (>B2)?

Postby Ani » Tue Jun 26, 2018 2:03 am

kulaputra wrote:2. Culturally, how do Persian natives respond to learners of the language?


Given how awesome Persians are in general, I would imagine very well. You could get on italki and find some who would like to practice English and have a chat about it?
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But there's no sense crying over every mistake. You just keep on trying till you run out of cake.


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