EASY PERSIAN

Part-time EMBA at
The Oxford Executive MBA Oxford University's Sad
Sad Business School Business School.
sbs.ox.ac.uk/Programmes/EMBA

PERSIAN LESSONS

Persian Lesson 2 The Alphabet, Long Vowels

Ads by Google IRAN FARSI WRITING LESSON ALPHABET

Before beginning lesson two, I think its necessary to mention that each lesson is the continuation of the previous one. Consequently, you may find
yourself unable to understand the new lessons perfectly if you ignore the previous lessons. So, I strongly recommend that you study the lessons step
by step without skipping any of them. Im sure you will make great progress in near future if you follow the instructions. In the case you followed the
instructions as you are being told and still found it difficult to learn, then you would have the right to angrily blame me for wasting your time and I
would certainly shut down this site forever! Its a deal!

Lesson 2 (Welcome back!)

Ok. How was lesson one? Was everything clear? If not, please let me know. Your suggestions will certainly improve the quality of this site to help you
get most out of these pages.

Last week, we learned many things, such as short vowels, three big letters along with their small forms, the correct pronunciation of the letters and so
on. We also learned how to write these letters. Do you remember those letters? Perfect! Now try to review them before we proceed.

Today, we are going to learn long vowels with the help of the same letters. Then, you will be able to pronounce each letter with six vowels (sounds, as
used more frequent in Persian). From now on, make the habit of pronouncing each letter with these six vowels. If this is correctly done, you will
become unbelievably fluent in learning and pronouncing the letters.

Ready? Lets begin!

As you know, we have three long vowels in Persian. Although we can put some signs on or under the letters as we did it with the short vowels, I am
trying to avoid doing this with the long vowels here. Therefore, we are not going to put some symbols on or under the letters. We can find these long
vowels by detecting some letters. This will make it easier.

If you remember, I told you that all big letters come at the end of the words and may stand either attached or separated from other letters with only
one exception. Today, we will see that exception.

Look at this letter. This is the big letter A in Persian, which unlike all other big letters comes at the beginning of the words only. Do you still
remember the big letter B and P? As you remember, they come at the end of the words and may stand either attached or separated from other letters.

But, here, the big letter (the only exception) does not attach to other letters. It stands separated only.

The pronunciation of this letter is not so difficult. It has only one pronunciation, and does not accept any other short and long vowels. You have to
pronounce it as /a:/ in arm.

In one word, this is the big letter A in Persian and pronounced as /a:/ in arm.

Is that clear? If you need to know how the big letter is pronounced in Persian, click here to listen. Ok.

Long A

This one is the small letter a in Persian. It may appear anywhere in words: beginning, middle, and in the end. This letter can accept all six main
vowels, including short and long vowels.

Now that we are familiar with the long vowel /a:/ in Persian, we are ready to learn two other long vowels. Those are /i:/ as in see. And /u:/ as in two.

This is the big letter Y in Persian. Only this letter can be pronounced as /i:/ sound. /i:/ as in see.

Note: like all other big letters, this comes at the end of the words and may stand either attached or separated. This can be pronounced as /i:/ Mostly
when it is attached to other letters.

This one is the small letter y in Persian. Like all other small letters, it comes at the beginning or middle of the words and accepts all six vowels.

The last one is the long sound /u:/.

As I told you before, some Persian letters have only one form. That is to say, their small and big forms are equal.

This letter is one of them. This is the only letter that may be pronounced as /u:/. /u:/ as in two.

I guess you may find these explanations a little bit confusing. Nevertheless, this is the only way to explain the long vowels. I am now trying to make it
easier to understand through writing.

As you remember, this is B in Persian: . Last week, we learned how to pronounce this letter with short vowels: . Toady we
will pronounce it with the long vowels too.

1- this is pronounced as /ba:/ in barter.

2- this is pronounced as /bi:/ in beat.

3- this one is pronounced as /bu:/ in boot.

Now, try to pronounce with the help of these three long vowels. You will say: . Need help? Click here to listen.

Big B

Well done! Was it really difficult? Now, we pronounce the letter with the help of six main vowels. Ready? Dont forget to read from right to left.

All B

From now on, we should pronounce each letter with these six sounds.

Now its your turn.

This is p in Persian. Try to pronounce it with the six vowels. You will say: . Great job! If you need help, click here
to listen.

All P

Finally, this isT in Persian. Try to pronounce it with the six vowels. You will say: .

Still need help? Click here.

All T

All right. This is the end of lesson two. Please remember that the most difficult part of our job is pronouncing the letters with these six vowels, which
is the start point of entering into a new language. We wouldnt have this much problem after we learned the letters successfully. From next week, all
we have to do is practicing some new letters with these vowels till we complete the letters. So, you may consider todays lesson the most difficult one
for weeks to come.

Dont forget to check the Lets write and the Useful drills now.

Feel tired? Hit me!

Click here if you want to write in Persian.

Lesson 2
Lets Write 2

Useful Drills 2

Persian Samples 2

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 Persian Lesson 1 The Alphabet, Short Vowels, Letters B, Persian Lesson 3 Letters from /alef/ to /he/
P&T

The Oxford
Executive MBA
Part-time EMBA at Oxford
University's Sad Business
School.

sbs.ox.ac.uk/emba

57 COMMENTS

Jennifer
MAY 22, 2012 @ 6:17 PM

Im a bit confused. Does big letter A stand only alone, or does it come at the beginning of words?

Amer Khan
FEBRUARY 1, 2013 @ 8:49 PM

big A always comes at start. and its pronounce is like (Aa)

RC Joseph
MAY 28, 2012 @ 10:44 AM

Jennifer,

Letter A stands alone and comes at the beginning of words only pronounced as a/ in Arm

Maren
JULY 12, 2012 @ 9:42 PM

When you say at beginning, do you mean in the beginning seen from Left to right (like the big letter L is in the beginning of Left), or from right to left
(like sihT). Great site btw!

Preeti
SEPTEMBER 7, 2012 @ 7:55 PM

It would be from right to left.

Ajay
SEPTEMBER 2, 2012 @ 9:50 AM

commendable efforts to make it learn effortlessly

nicole
OCTOBER 5, 2012 @ 8:12 PM

hi. im learning farsi for a story im working on (im a writer)and this site is unbelievably helpful i just have one question: how does the little a accept the
long vowels, what does it look like with the big y and little y. im confused. thanks for your help.

rik
OCTOBER 8, 2012 @ 5:06 AM

Omg than you so much. Do you also have an application we can download for our phone

helya
SEPTEMBER 17, 2014 @ 8:37 AM

if your Y is going at the end of your word then you would use to big Y (the squiggly line) but if its the middle word you should use the little Y
(two dots below)
hope this helps

Dobbs DeCorsey
OCTOBER 19, 2012 @ 4:57 AM

You should make an app for this website. I wish I ciuld easily take it on the go, but I dont have any 3g on my tablet so when Im in the car theres no
way that I can access this website. Really consider making this an app with interactive writing tools.

Antonio Q.
NOVEMBER 18, 2012 @ 9:27 PM

Woow thank you very much! I want to learn farsi since A long time! I was trying to find a farsi teacher here im Mexico City but it is quite expensive!
This site is really useful. Thank you verymuch for taking the time helping ppl to learn farsi!

Richard J
JANUARY 1, 2013 @ 3:07 PM

This is the big letter Y in Persian. Only this letter can be pronounced as /i:/ sound. /i:/ as in see. There is no i in see or am I missing something
here. Downloads would help here so that I can hear the sound.

Luke
JANUARY 1, 2013 @ 3:27 PM

He means the i sound, like in Italian, e.g. in the word si, or pizza. That sound is often written in English with two es, like bee, or see,
or teeth, or sometimes with ea, like sea, and a couple of other ways too. Of course, English has a lot of irregular spellings (where the
same sound is written in different ways, like sea, bee, piece) and irregular pronunciations (where the same letter or group of letters is
pronounced in different ways, like the letter i in pizza (/i/), bit (//), or price (/a/), to name a few.), so here is the link to the
Wikipedia article on the sound he means, with an audio sample (under the picture of the i on the top right of the article):
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Close_front_unrounded_vowel

If you need any more help, (Im not an expert at all, but) feel free to e-mail me at nzk13@yahoo.com, and I will see what I can do.

[Note: all of the letters in /s, like /i/, is referring to their transcription (how they are written down) in the IPA, or International Phonetic
Alphabet, which you can read more about here:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/International_Phonetic_Alphabet%5D

Richard J
 JANUARY 1, 2013 @ 3:39 PM

Later downloads in lesson helped thanks i think ive mastered it.

Mel
JANUARY 16, 2013 @ 3:14 AM

So I have gotten up to lesson 11 and Im still a little confused about the short vowels. If Im reading a word how do I know if its going to be e, a or i. Kind
of like the word Shoma which is one of the You words. I get that ma is a long vowel But when I learned the character in shoma it was described as
Shin. How do I know when Im reading Shoma in persian I dont read it as Shinma or Shima?

HAZ
JANUARY 24, 2013 @ 12:15 PM

dear Mel, Shin is the name of the character having the sound sh. Im sure as you go on with the lessons it will be easier to differentiate between
reading it has Shoma or Shima, you will get a sense of it, although it seems hard at first.

Despina
FEBRUARY 22, 2013 @ 5:06 PM

Dear Mr Hassan,
your lessons are absolutely dettailed with a rare method. The whole project is wonderful. Congratulations. Thank you for this site.
yours faithfully
Despina Asimakopoulou (Athens-Greece)

wafaa
APRIL 15, 2013 @ 7:20 PM

Hello,
I know Arabic and English , Any one could trade ?I could teach you one of these languages and you could teach me Farsi :)
My yahoo
wafawatts@yahoo.com

Regards
Wafaa

Amir
MAY 23, 2013 @ 5:59 AM

Hi,
I am a native Iranian and living in Iran.
I will be happy to help everyone that wants to leering Persian.
This is my email: s_amir8668@yahoo.com

Sarah
MAY 28, 2013 @ 1:31 AM

Wow this is amazing! I look forward to learning Persian through your site. This is perfect! Thank you!

Luis Alfonso
JUNE 24, 2013 @ 2:05 PM

Greetings all and Dear Professor,

Thank you for this valuable tool, I am enjoying it immensely!
 mohammad
JUNE 28, 2013 @ 4:06 AM

good boy:D

Irfan Ali
JUNE 27, 2013 @ 6:28 AM

i like the pronunciation of farsi very much

mohammad
JUNE 28, 2013 @ 4:07 AM

hi
Im iranian
add me to teach you persain
mohammadtaheri47@yahoo.com

Taraneh
MARCH 19, 2014 @ 2:26 AM

Persian

Antonio
JUNE 29, 2013 @ 8:16 PM

I dont exactly understand one thing. Do long vowels attach do letters while short vowels dont?

Pooja
JULY 28, 2013 @ 4:57 PM

In last chapter in terms of vowels there was no big no small..here it is and usage is only described with big vowles. I am not understanding it here.

Vel
AUGUST 14, 2013 @ 2:02 AM

does persian have long e sound? I mean, e like in bed only longer pronounced.
and, does persian have short i sound? I mean, i like in fit.

thanks

Bob
AUGUST 6, 2015 @ 1:09 PM

About long e , yes it does.but In standard dialect of persian wich we speak in Teheran, we dont have short i at all. But in Dari dialect and
tajiki persian wich they speak in afghanistan and tajikistan, they have short i.

Cindy
SEPTEMBER 8, 2013 @ 12:56 AM

Salam, Can you see this comment? I am looking to learn Farsi. Please email me if you can help. sweet2ooth@rocketmail.com
Kamran
OCTOBER 9, 2013 @ 7:35 AM

Hi,
Thank you!

I have one question from this lesson:

So are the long vowels just letters that can express a sound (act as a vowel) but CAN be a letter with different pronunciation (act as consonant)?
However the short vowels are NOT letters, correct?

Margaret Zambrano
OCTOBER 10, 2013 @ 12:24 PM

thank you very much for the great job!! I love the persian language!!!!

Micah
OCTOBER 10, 2013 @ 5:12 PM

Im also confused with the long vowels. As Kamran above me said, are the long vowels BOTH letters and sounds (vowels) that attach to words, while
the short vowels are ONLY sounds that do NOT attach to words? There seems to be much difference between the short vowels and long vowels.
Thanks

Brian
OCTOBER 10, 2013 @ 8:25 PM

Micah, you are correct. The terms long and short in the way Hassan is using them dont have the same meaning that you may be used to in
discussing linguistics. In fact, using the terms may cause too much confusion. You dont have to think in terms of long & short. For now, its
probably enough to know that there are three unwritten vowel sounds and three written letters with vowel sounds.

Kamran
OCTOBER 26, 2013 @ 9:03 AM

Thank you!

Bob
AUGUST 6, 2015 @ 1:43 PM

Dont be confused. The Long and the short that he said is not about the sounds ,its all about the letters and alphabet. all of your problem
is about the persian script rather than Persian language itself. Our alphabet like hebrew and arabic is Abjad , that means alphabet without
any letters for vowels included. We just have consoant letters in our alphabet. Actualy they invented some small signs like
.
.
. to show the
vowels. This small signs come above or under the consonants to show the sound as in this alphabet all vowels attach to each cosonant of a
word. For example if you want to write an english word like International in persian alphabet it would be :

wich includes for I
sound, for N , for T ,this little
. for E sound, for R, again for N, a
. for A sound, for tio as its prounounced /sh/, for N, for the A
(its the only vowel that has a letter in persian alphabet altough literarly it also doesnt but practicaly it has), and a for L. So learning persian
alphabet maybe is a bit dif cult even for some native speakers, but the Language itself is so easy.

anushaw askari
OCTOBER 23, 2013 @ 8:41 AM

wonderfully explained. very precise and helpful! amazed to find such a wonderful site to learn persian, finally!!

majalmirasol
OCTOBER 30, 2013 @ 2:17 AM
Typo: Toady we will pronounce it with the long vowels too.

Iris Marquela Santamaria Jurado

NOVEMBER 8, 2013 @ 10:27 PM

felicidades al seor q tomo esta iniciativa de este curso

Rewend
DECEMBER 22, 2013 @ 12:24 PM

I cant find the next lesson,how I can find it? Please help me.

Jafar
DECEMBER 22, 2013 @ 6:25 PM

http://www.easypersian.com/lesson-archive-1/

Go to that website and click on the lesson you need, also at the bottom of each lesson is a next lesson button.

Rewend
DECEMBER 22, 2013 @ 6:28 PM

Thanks a lot.

Asrar
MARCH 13, 2014 @ 8:06 PM

Amazing teaching methods and explanations. Very accurate and realistic! Thank you for providing these free online lessons to the public.

Taraneh
MARCH 19, 2014 @ 2:19 AM

You forgot one of the vowels of the alefba alphabet amongst other mistakes made upon the Farsi language on your website.

Carl P.
APRIL 20, 2014 @ 1:46 PM

Wow! Thx so much. You explain everything so clearly! :)

OMID
MAY 14, 2014 @ 5:10 AM

WOW this is legit if i was white and i wanted to learn farsi it would be great too bad i type farsi like an old person and cant use it in a practical sense

sean
JUNE 16, 2014 @ 3:12 AM

Now that we are familiar with the long vowel /a:/ in Persian, you never said that /a:/ was the first long vowel. s: bit of confusion there. s:

sean
JUNE 16, 2014 @ 3:15 AM
so the y is a vowel?

Cataphract
OCTOBER 8, 2014 @ 5:50 PM

both vowel and letter

Soi
JUNE 17, 2014 @ 8:47 AM

Im confused with the long A sound that you are describing. To me, the long A sound is in the word hay and the word arm sounds more like a
short sounding A.

Cataphract
OCTOBER 8, 2014 @ 6:16 PM

There is no difference between big A and little a in pronunciation.one of the differences is placing
the second one is about vowels.
the big A NEVER accept vowels and always sound like hay that you mentioned
but as a letter small a accept all other vowels. while the small a as vowel can attach to other letters like : =+( ba:means with)
as a letter:
small a
=
+ that sound like bad
small a = + that sound like bed

small a =
+ that sound like chord
small a = + that sound like milk
small a = + that sound like rude

David
JANUARY 15, 2015 @ 4:11 AM

You showed in lesson #1 how short vowels are written using signs on or under letter, and in normal writing they arent usually written out, you just
learn to recognize the words. In this lesson #2 long vowels appear to be actual letters, so unlike short vowels, are they always written out?

Also, as far as I can tell, Long a is pronounced like the English word awe. This seems closer to what Im hearing than arm does. Please CORRECT
ME if Im wrong on that, it just seems like every other time a word with ar or er has been used for help with vowel pronunciation they wanted me to
pronounce the r as well, like in French. This time it didnt seem to be the case, so I was just checking, but its been bugging me.

Finally, I got the impression that the Persian letter y already has a prescribed vowel associated with it [ye] for when its not used as the long vowel
[e:], but I may be wrong. Im sure Ill figure it out once we get to the rest of the alphabet.

Oh, and thank you so much for this website, its the best one of its type that Ive ever seen!

Olla
MAY 13, 2015 @ 2:28 PM

Hello, I speak and write Arabic and Im familiar with the Farsi differences, can I just skip the letters intro?

Ding Yi
MAY 15, 2015 @ 4:40 AM

Can you show me an example how to use those small letters of [a:], [i:], and {u:]? I noticed b+a, just use the big A. Thanks

Richard Zelnicek
MAY 2, 2016 @ 7:56 PM

Excellent way to teach copletelly new language. I pased 2 weeks in 1 evening. I am not so in a hurry, but I think that it is one chapter. Mainly I enjoyed
writing. It is so easy. Keep on.

I would appreciate link to some Persian caligraphy (art of writing). In my country the handwriting is considered as highest sign of good education.

Ric Reifel
MAY 19, 2016 @ 3:02 PM

Loving this site, VERY good work. Two things. In this lesson above you miss-spelled TODAY as TOADY. Near the top.

You identified a, and y but not the third other than with its sound. What letter is it and I would love to know their names aleph etc.

THANKS

Mpho Mokoena
AUGUST 28, 2016 @ 12:08 PM

This website is a rarity. Textbooks hardly have this kind of user friendly language, someone always assumes prior knowledge, skipping something,
trying to sound learned for impressions and does not consider his/her audience. Clearly this website should be archived as an achievement. Well
done, Mr Hassan. I have gone through only two lessons and I have learned more than I did using other sources. As difficult as Farsi is to learn, I think
for absolute beginners a less than academic but naive approach is necessary. You came through. Dazzling!

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