Persian
Persian — Indo-European family, about 60 million native speakers; with Dari and Tajik the count reaches roughly 110 million (estimate, Ethnologue). Script: the Arabic script, 32 letters: short vowels are not written, the line runs right to left, and four letters are its own invention (پ چ ژ گ).
One phrase, two short checks
Demo language: Persian
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صبح بخیر
sâbh bekheyr
good morning
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صبح بخیر
sâbh bekheyr
- good morning
- goodbye
- thank you
- hi
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صبح بخیر
good morning
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___! حالت چطوره؟
Good morning! How are you?
- لطفا · lâtfan
- صبح بخیر · sâbh bekheyr
- سلام · salâm
- خداحافظ · khâdâhâfez
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صبح بخیر
good morning
Two checks complete
صبح بخیر
good morning
This is a choice based on text. Conversation and remembering over time still need practice and checking.
Answers stay on this page. Statistics include the demo stage, overall result, interface language and saved counter consent choice, without answer text or a profile.
Where to start
A young course: the words, the lessons and the recordings are all here, but a native speaker has not read it end to end yet. Spot a rough edge? Tell us and we will fix it.
- →Persian alphabetAll letters and how they are read
- →Persian wordsBy topic and alphabetically
- →PhrasebookPhrases ready to use
- →GrammarRules without jargon
- →Reading textsShort texts with translation
- →How to readThe writing course from zero
- →TransliterationThe table, both ways
- →PronunciationWhat you hear and what is hard
- →From scratchWhere to start, and in what order
- →How long to studyAn honest estimate, with caveats
First words
Every conversation starts with them — and so does the first impression: one greeting in the local language and you stop being a stranger within a second.
- سلامsalâmhithe final long a reads "o": salaam, never "sa-lyam"
- صبح بخیرsâbh bekheyrgood morningLiterally "morning [be] without grief". Wishes are built as time word + bekheyr, and the answer comes back in the same shape
- ممنونmemnunthank youLiterally "obliged" — the same word of courtesy some fairy tales borrow. The polite choice; the borrowed "mersi" is the street one
- لطفاlâtfanpleaseLiterally "out of kindness". It closes a request — cha, lotfan, tea please — and softens an offer the same way
- خداحافظkhâdâhâfezgoodbyeLiterally "God [be your] keeper" — khoda is God, hafez protects. In speech it wears down to khodafez
- حالت چطوره؟hâlet châtâre؟how are you?Literally "your state, how is it?" The -et on the end is "your"; to someone respected it becomes haale shoma, your state
- خوبمkhubamI am wellLiterally "well-I": the link verb -am glues straight onto the word, no separate "am" needed. The full answer runs khubam, mamnun
- میبینمتmi-binemetsee youLiterally "I see you" — subject, verb and object in one word. A warm sign-off between friends, lighter than khodahafez
About the language
| Native name | فارسی · farsi |
| Official in | Iran, Afghanistan (as Dari) and Tajikistan (as Tajik) |
| Also spoken in | Uzbekistan, Iraq, Bahrain, Qatar, the UAE and the USA |
| How many speakers | about 60 million native speakers; with Dari and Tajik the count reaches roughly 110 million (estimate, Ethnologue) |
| Family | Indo-European family, Iranian group — Dari and Tajik are essentially three norms of one language |
| Script | the Arabic script, 32 letters: short vowels are not written, the line runs right to left, and four letters are its own invention (پ چ ژ گ) |
| Writing direction | right to left |
Hard: short vowels are not written — the same string of consonants reads several ways, and the first weeks live on the transcription.
Easy: no cases and no gender, one verb root for every tense, and plenty of recognizable words: bazaar, caravan, chess, suitcase.
What people most often take it up for: work and business with Iran, travel and relocation, Persian poetry and cinema, family and roots.
Curiosities in Persian
Persian is a relative of English, not of Arabic — the script is all they share. Both languages are Indo-European, and the very first words match almost sound for sound: mādar, pedar, barādar — mother, father and brother.
How lessons work
A lesson is up to half an hour a day, split into three to five short sessions. A word comes back not on the course's schedule but at the moment you are about to forget it: the interval is computed by an algorithm from your own answers.
- The longer you want to keep a word, the longer the gap before reviewing it can be. To hold it for a week, review it after a day or two; to hold it for a year, after about three or four weeks.checked many timesCepeda et al., 2008, Psychological Science 19(11) · Over 1,350 participants, tested after delays of up to a year. The best gap is about 20–40% of the target interval when you need to remember for a week, and 5–10% when for a year.
- Recalling beats re-reading. Covering the translation and trying to remember it does more than reading it ten more times.checked many timesAdesope, Trevisan & Sundararajan, 2017, Review of Educational Research 87(3) · 188 experiments, 272 comparisons. g = 0.61; against plain re-reading 0.51, against passive review 0.93.
- A material reward promised for doing a task lowers the wish to take it up of your own accord once the reward is gone. Praise for what was done, on the contrary, keeps that wish alive.checked many timesDeci, Koestner & Ryan, 1999, Psychological Bulletin 125(6) · 128 experiments. A material reward promised in advance and the time later spent on the task by free choice: d = −0.44 for finishing, −0.40 for taking part, −0.28 for performance; a reward unrelated to the task, −0.14, not significant. Praise: +0.33.
Frequently asked
Where to start learning Persian?
With the script: 32 letters are worked through in a week or two, and after that words stop being pictures.
How many people speak Persian?
About 60 million native speakers; with Dari and Tajik the count reaches roughly 110 million — an estimate; source: Ethnologue. Nobody runs an exact census of languages, and sources disagree by noticeable amounts.
Is Persian hard?
Short vowels are not written — the same string of consonants reads several ways, and the first weeks live on the transcription. At the same time, no cases and no gender, one verb root for every tense, and plenty of recognizable words: bazaar, caravan, chess, suitcase.
Where is Persian spoken?
An official language in: Iran, Afghanistan (as Dari) and Tajikistan (as Tajik). Noticeable communities: Uzbekistan, Iraq, Bahrain, Qatar, the UAE and the USA.