I really found this reading interesting because I love looking at how different languages relate. When learning Spanish, I found that I was often comparing it to my previous knowledge of French and English. And although the similarities seem to be less frequent in Farsi, I still enjoy learning about the it connects to other languages. One such similarity is actually expressed in the book with the different words for father in various Indo-European languages. Although not included as an example, the Persian word for father, pedaer, fits into the model shown.
As explained in Cultural Post #2, Farsi is a part of the Indo-Iranian branch of Indo-European languages. For me, it's interesting to look at the other languages in this branch such as Panjabi, Bengali, or Kurdish, because I enjoy seeing which languages are closest to Farsi.
Before this course, I never really thought about how knowing a language's history could help me to learn the language. I never really learned language history while studying French or Spanish and now actually wonder about how it could have helped me in the process. For me, the most helpful part about knowing the history of Persian, comes from understanding the use of borrowed words. In learning the history, I learned about the Arabic invasion and conquest, which explains the use of many Arabic words. I'm also thankful that the language has evolved as it has, because the older versions of Persian were actually more grammatically complicated as nouns had genders and there was a different form used for counting nouns.
Unfortunately, I didn't accomplish as much over break as I would have liked. I did receive my new book "Spoken World Farsi" and began looking through it. So far, I really like the way that the book works. It's set up to be like an actual course, so I'll have to follow the chapters successively as they build on points and vocabulary learned in previous chapters. There is also a set of cds that comes with the book. One cd contains the spoken dialogue of the conversations that are transcribed in the book. This way I can either follow along in the book as I read, or, as I get better I can test myself by just listening to the dialogues. There is also another cd that is used for "on the go" learning. This cd contains lessons that are spoken aloud so that I can learn when I'm in the car or at the gym, which is perfect for me as I've had a hard time scheduling time to practice my Farsi. For the most part, the book contains lessons that are a part of my learning plan so I'm really looking forward to putting this to use.
Over the break, I also developed new inspiration for learning Farsi. As I'd previously stated, I wanted to learn the language because I was interested in working for an agency (governmental or non) that would do international work. I wasn't quite sure about this though, and although I'm in school now and learning, I wasn't sure if this would continue to inspire me to learn Farsi after graduation. I was recently accepted into a graduate program for conflict analysis and resolution and because of this I know that I should definitely stay devoted to my Farsi studies, as this language skill will be very useful in my future profession.
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