Reflections

[Becky Walker]

I was pleased with my progress this week, though I will have to attribute it to the language itself. Electing to learn the numbers and days of the week at the same time was nice, as the days of the week are labeled by which day in the week they fall on--for example, Monday (do.shan.be) is day one.Mona is incredibly helpful in informing us which types of greetings are appropriate for who. Unfortunately none of the sites I have found tell the learner who is the subject being addressed with various greetings, and using the wrong one with the wrong person would be rather insulting--so thanks Mona!I am still struggling with the amount of reading and writing that I want to use. I understand that its important, and that I should learn at the beginning, but I am finding that it greatly inhibits my learning curve. I could learn at a much quicker rate if I didn't have to worry about whether I use the 't' that has the two dots, the one that looks like a b, the one that looks like a b with the dot, or the one with three dots.My rationale for wanting to learn Farsi is to be able to orally communicate, with no ambition of wanting to translate or write. I'm going to go through this next upcoming week still writing down the words in Farsi script, but I have a feel that as the weeks progress, my words will become purely transliterated.Overall, I am pleased with the amount of Farsi that I am learning, and I think that the manner in which I am learning it is ideal for what I am hoping to gain from this course.