During the first week, the main task that I worked on was my reading and comprehension of what I read in Persian. My language partner (Zari) tested my reading level through reading news articles and posts out loud both in Dari and Farsi. The second task that I completed with Zari was speaking about what I read. We spend an hour discussing and analyzing the readings where I also got the opportunity to share my perspective on the topics.
What I hoped to accomplish this week was to gain a better understanding of what resources, activities, and learning tools my language partner and I should use going forward. One of the major things that I wanted to figure out was whether I should continue with the Iranian dialect of Persian or the Afghan dialect.
My community partner and I narrowed down our goals for this semester to the following tasks. The first goal is to write discussion posts analyzing and reflecting on the readings. The second goal is to get accustomed to type in Persian using the keyboard and the computer. The third goal is to become comfortable when reading text that is written in the Iranian Persian dialect. The fourth goal is to converse and deliver presentations in Persian in a formal manner. Lastly, through this course, we hope to expand our knowledge on the history of Dari and Farsi by exploring and engaging in cultural activities such as listening to Persian songs, watching videos and reading poetry.
The strategies that we used during the first week was mainly through reading and conversing. I read a few articles and discussion posts on the death of Qasim Suleimani, the Iranian general who was killed by the US. We used articles both published by foreign news agencies such as BBC Persia but also Tolo News and Iranian news stations. We also watched interviews conducted in Persian related to this topic. Some of the other resources that we used were Persian posts on Instagram where I read the comments of those who had written in response to the post. For homework, I spend a couple of hours reading in Persian and writing short reflections on what I read. Furthermore, I spend about two hours watching the Afghan Star singing competition which demonstrates a cultural aspect of learning the language. While watching these videos, I paid attention to how people interact with each other and how sentence phrases break certain rules when sang in a song.
I found out that reading out loud was a very effective strategy. I learned that I found it easier to read the Afghan Persian dialect compared to the Iranian Persian dialect. As similar as Dari and Farsi are to each other, the way words are structured makes a difference in how you pronounce those words. When reading in the Iranian Persian dialect, I understood what I was reading but it was much slower than when I was reading in Dari. I found myself more comfortable wanting to read news articles in Dari and discussing them in Dari rather than Farsi. My language partner and I decided that going forward, we will use both dialects so I can become comfortable with both. Also, watching videos in the language helped me to be mindful of the way words are pronounced in these two different dialects. Furthermore, paying attention to the words in the songs that were sung on the Afghan Star, I realized that if certain phrases were taken out of those songs, they would not make much sense. This is an area that I will continue to pay attention to going forward.
Overall, during this first week, I realized that I am more comfortable with the Afghan Persian dialect and find it uncomfortable speaking int the Iranian Perian dialect. I hope that by the end of the semester, I will feel more comfortable to speak in both of these dialects. I will continue to build on the Persian language by engaging in more complex reading materials such as poems and historical artifacts. I will also continue to work on my Farsi dialect by listening to more videos and audios in Iranian Persian.
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