Language courses
Due to extensive building works in the British Academy and consequently the shortage of space BIPS will not be able to offer any Persian Language Courses until later in 2010.
Once the Teaching is resumed the course will be aimed at the beginners level, however, based on demand, lower-intermediate and intermediate courses may also be offered.
Details of place, date and time of the British Institute of Persian Studies' language courses are as follows:
Venue: To be confirmed but most probably at the British Academy, Carlton House, 10 Carlton House Terrace, London SW1Y 5AH
Provisional Time: Tuesday evenings from 6.00 to 8.00 pmm provisional start date in 2010 to be confirmed
Duration: 10 weeks
Tutor: Narguess Farzad, Senior Fellow, Department of Languages and Cultures of the Near and Middle East, SOAS
Level: Beginners but to be confirmed (please let us have an assessment of your level of Persian language expertise when you enrole)
Cost: £250 (exclusive of course material)
The main text book used for the beginner's class is Teach Yourself Modern Persian, by Narguess Farzad.
Below is a sample audio file from the book. The topics of this unit are: general greeting, days of the week, Iranian months and the seasons, in Persian.
For more information please contact the office at: bips@britac.ac.uk
Useful information on Persian
There are many on-line resources available that can be an aid to language learning. Here is a very useful link from the University of Texas. Once you are linked to the page click on courses in the left hand column and try your hand at the various exercises it offers:
On-line Persian learning resources
Native speakers of Persian or the more advanced users of the language may sometimes feel strongly about the excessive use of Arabic or other foreign words in written and spoken Persian. Here are some Persian alternatives for the regularly used foreign terms: