August
It has only been one week, but I am already so excited to continue learning Farsi! I have started off strong and met with my Language Partner for about an hour five times this week. Because I was really busy in the summer, I was not able to meet much, so this week we have mainly focused on reviewing old material, and we will probably continue to focus on just reviewing for a while. Both of us think it’s much more important to adequately learn the material, move forward, and then keep reviewing old material so as to cement the vocabulary.
I use the website Persian Language Online (abbreviated from here on out as “PLO”). It is a free resource made by the Iranian Heritage Foundation. I have been using PLO for about a year now, and it has provided a lot of needed structure in my Farsi learning journey. It is separated into three levels (in order of difficulty: Beginner, Elementary, Intermediate), with a total of sixty lessons (twenty lessons per level 一 B1-B20, E21-E40, and I41-I60). Elementary lessons have a main text and two dialogues; the main text uses more formal language, while the dialogues use more conversational language.
Because my language partner lives in Iran, where the government heavily censors the internet, I made all the lessons on PLO into a pdf file (PLO Elementary 21-40.pdf).
I am currently reviewing the Elementary lessons (E21-E40). This week, I reviewed the first three lessons, which I think is what I will focus on for the rest of this journal. For reference, here is the layout of a standard lesson (E21).
Lesson 21 (shown above) introduces some basic vocabulary about hobbies, school, friends, and music. I have done this lesson more times than I can count, so we only spent one session on it. I read through it, practicing speaking at a faster pace. My language partner then asked some basic comprehension questions, which I answered (in Farsi), and then we finished off with me reciting the lesson, but saying it from my perspective (e.g. instead of saying I am 17 years old, like the narrator in the lesson, I said I was 19). I think I struggled the most with this, as my biggest struggle right now is formulating sentences (in terms of grammar).
I am hoping taking SDLC 105 will help me have a better method for tackling some of the grammar that is making me struggle. In Farsi, the sentence structure follows a Subject-Object-Verb/SOV order (boy ball throws), while in English it is SVO (boy throws ball). I feel like there is more that is confusing me, but I don't think I know enough about grammar to articulate it. I think the strategies I am using now are sufficient for the amount I know about language; again, as SLDC 105 progresses, I am sure I will modify some of my techniques, or at least be able to articulate the aspects of Farsi that are confusing me.
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