Persian english English persian Learner's Dictionary. A Dictionary for English Speakers Studying Persian Farsi/dari

Customer Reviews

Persian-english English-persian Learner's Dictionary: A Dictionary for English Speakers Studying Persian (Farsi/dari

2008-08-27
I was very disappointed with the dictionary. I wanted a learner's dictionary. This is a dictionary. It doesn't show you how to pronounce the words and it doesn't give you the words in a sentence as an example.

It's cheap at least...

2008-05-10
If you are seriously interested in learning Persian, this dictionary will help you for the first couple weeks, then irritate you endlessly. As an avid linguist, I have to say it is abysmally deficient for genuine study. It is more akin to a "lexicon" than a true "dictionary" in that it provides a list of words and their counterparts in the foreign language. I recommend going to Ketab dot com, where you can find a fantastic collection of dictionaries. Sure, they're a bit more expensive, and they're not bi-directional, but they're SO much more worth the cost.

1. There are no usage examples, and no clarification when multiple entries appear.

2. The dependence on transliteration is also surprisingly more cumbersome than you would imagine. The Persian alphabet really only takes about a week, maybe two, to get to a point where you can lose the training wheels, and, at that point, having to function in transliteration is a pain. Especially with the fact that if you see a word in a newspaper or whatnot, it won't have it's vowels (except, of course, Alif, Vav and He), so you have to just fumble unless you know how to read it.

3. Strange entries... wanna' know how to say "f*ck"? It's there... "Metapsychosis"? Also there... so is "the day Mohammed was declared the prophet" (admittedly helpful culturally speaking), but it's only a few pages away from "maf'ul" which means "object, passive homosexual"... while I appreciate the author trying to provide a breadth of vocabulary, he could've used some of his energy providing an entry for a word like "Ra" (subject or D.O. marker)

Overall, I can't give this dictionary more than a single star... like I said, it's cheap, which is great, and for the money, it's pretty good, but, overall you'd do better going to Ketab dot com, or just getting the Lonely Planet Phrasebook. Which is AMAZING.

Very helpful

2008-02-22
How I would have loved to have this volume available when I was learning Farsi as a teenager in Tehran in the 1970's (before the shah fell, when Americans were abundant there). This dictionary has a lot of useful vocabulary. As other reviewers have pointed out, there are some unfortunate gaps, but overall, this dictionary has most of the words a beginning or intermediate student might want to know. Sometimes one must look in more than one place in the transliterated Persian spelling in order to find the consonants with the correct vowel, but most of the time this is only a minor inconvenience.

Once a student moves on to reading Persian literature, he or she will have to get a larger dictionary such as the Aryanpur Kashani one. But for beginning and intermediate students whose primary focus is conversation and the simple readings in introductory textbooks, this smaller dictionary will prove very helpful.

One of the Best, Could Be Better

2008-02-16
Decent Persian (aka Farsi, Dari) dictionaries are hard to find. Persian words are typically not written with the short vowels, and almost nowhere will you find reference books that tell you how to pronounce these words. This is one of the few dictionaries that show you the full pronunciation. The printing is clean and easy to read. The definitions are concise, and mostly right-on.

Two gripes:

1. The Persian-English side is sorted by the way Persian words are pronounced, not by the way they're written. This is a huge problem, because when I need to look up a word I don't know, I also don't know how it's pronounced. Words that begin with an alef, for example, might start with an "a" sound, an "e" sound or an "o" sound--and I lose a lot of time trying to guess where the word might be listed.

2. The vocabulary provided is good, but not very extensive. You'll find yourself needing many words not in the book.

The best Persian dictionary I've found is the Aryanpur (also available at Amazon). It's correctly sorted, has a huge number of words, and--most importantly but most often overlooked--tells you what those unwritten short vowels are! But it's also pricy and too heavy to sit comfortably in your lap while you read. If I'm on the go and can't lug around the Aryanpur, this Learner's Dictionary is my second choice.

Very Introductory-Level; Overly Simplistic

2007-11-28
This dictionary was a disapointment for me. It's missing very common phrases such as "in spite of" among many others. More importantly, there are often many translations for each entery but the dictionary doesn't clarify the differences among the translations. I wouldn't reccomend it to anyone beside an absolute beginner. Then, I think it might be suitable (if only for a short while.)

Great Dictionary!

2007-10-05
The increasing popularity of the study of Persian (also known as Farsi, Tajiki or Dari) in the English speaking world, has created a need for a bi-directional Persian-English dictionary geared towards English speakers who are learning Persian.

The features of the Persian-English / English-Persian Learner's Dictionary which make it unique are:

Bi-directional: This is the first and only Persian-English/English-Persian dictionary in one volume which features both Persian and transliteration. Alphabet: The alphabet used in Persian is completely different from the English. This can be a major barrier in the early stages of learning the language. This dictionary provides a simple transliteration of the Persian word along with its equivalent in the Persian alphabet. Alphabetical order: In this dictionary, the alphabetical order in the Persian-English section is based on the English spelling. This makes it easy for the user who is not familiar with the Persian alphabet to find a word. Correct use of words: This dictionary gives synonyms in various contexts allowing the student to easily choose the correct meaning. Entries: Approximately 18,000 entries covering both day-to-day and more specialized vocabulary.

The Audience for this dictionary is: English speaking students of Persian. English speakers who are seeking to communicate with Persian speakers. Children of Iranians, Afghans and Tajiks outside their homeland who wish to learn their mother language. Persian speakers who wish to learn English.

Qarib, vali kamel nist... 2007-04-07
This is the closest thing to a complete, practical Persian-English dictionary out there. Still, there are errors in it, such as spelling and transliteration. The other glaring issue is that the Persian section is organized by English transliteration. This is counter-intuitive to all but the most elementary Persian learner. All other dictionaries I've used are arranged according to the Persian spelling. This is a particularly difficult issue if you one, are unsure of a word's pronunciation, or two, do not subscribe to the author's pronunciation. Persian is far from a standardized language, and the nuances of modern Persian pronunciation can make word finding difficult. The word mim-jim-mim-'ayn could be transliterated as either mojamma', mojamme' or majma' based on the Arabic. To look this word up in this dictionary, you need to know that the word is pronounced majma'. Lastly, there are fewer entries than one would expect from a larger-than-pocket-size dictionary. One positive is that every word has pronunciation in its entry and it is of recent print, so it includes neologisms and other words of recent convention which other dictionaries leave out. Another is that it has both English to Persian and vice versa. Far from perfect, but still very useful for the modern student. A good companion would be the Hans Wehr or Nicholas Awde Arabic dictionaries to help with Arabic-dervied vocabulary, which is about 60% of total Persian vocabulary. Xoda hafez.

Persian-English Disctionary 2007-01-27
Best Persian-English Disctionary I have found to date. I few flaws, but better than any else available.

This is the best dictionary for learning Persian 2006-11-30
Most English<->Persian dictionaries on the market are designed to serve the needs of native Persian speakers who are learning English. This dictionary is designed specifically for the English speaker who is learning Persian. It includes a Western alphabet transliteration of Persian words in addition to the Persian alphabet spelling. It includes the "present root" of each Persian verb -- essential for learners. It includes minimal explanations of ambiguous words, e.g. "earth (planet)" vs. "earth (soil)". In all other cases, it just lists the translated words. The dictionary was written by the author of the Lonely Planet Farsi Phrasebook. I've compared most of the English<->Persian dictionaries -- this is the best for learning Persian.