Product Description

Cultural Writing. Reference. This PERSIAN-ENGLISH ENGLISH-PERSIAN LEARNER'S DICTIONARY speaks to the increasing popularity of the study of Persian (also known as Farsi, Tajiki or Dari) in the English-speaking world. This wonderfully assembled cohesive reference book fills needs of English speakers who are learning Persian, Persian speakers who wish to learn English, as well as children of Iranians, Afghans and Tajiks outside their homeland who wish to learn their mother language. The dictionary is bi-directional, offers both transliteration as well as Persian script, details the Persian alphabet, and is alphabetical. Also, the 18,000 entries include synonyms in various contexts allowing the student to easily choose the correct meaning.

Product Details

• Amazon Sales Rank: #470734 in Books
• Published on:
• Original language: English
• Number of items: 1
• Dimensions: 5.51" h x .91" w x 8.46" l, .94 pounds
• Binding: Paperback
• 317 pages

About the Author
Yavar Dehghani, who has taught Persian for over twenty years, is the director of the Persian Department at the ADF School of Languages in Australia. Through his broad experience he realized that there was a growing need for a simple Persian-English dictionary directed towards English speakers who are learning Persian.

Customer Reviews

Most helpful customer reviews

47 of 47 people found the following review helpful.
This is the best dictionary for learning Persian
By matthiasbsandiego
Most English<->Persian dictionaries on the market are designed to serve the needs of native Persian speakers who are learning English. This dictionary is designed specifically for the English speaker who is learning Persian. It includes a Western alphabet transliteration of Persian words in addition to the Persian alphabet spelling. It includes the "present root" of each Persian verb -- essential for learners. It includes minimal explanations of ambiguous words, e.g. "earth (planet)" vs. "earth (soil)". In all other cases, it just lists the translated words. The dictionary was written by the author of the Lonely Planet Farsi Phrasebook. I've compared most of the English<->Persian dictionaries -- this is the best for learning Persian.

24 of 24 people found the following review helpful.
One of the Best, Could Be Better
By L. Saltern
Decent Persian (aka Farsi, Dari) dictionaries are hard to find. Persian words are typically not written with the short vowels, and almost nowhere will you find reference books that tell you how to pronounce these words. This is one of the few dictionaries that show you the full pronunciation. The printing is clean and easy to read. The definitions are concise, and mostly right-on.

Two gripes:

1. The Persian-English side is sorted by the way Persian words are pronounced, not by the way they're written. This is a huge problem, because when I need to look up a word I don't know, I also don't know how it's pronounced. Words that begin with an alef, for example, might start with an "a" sound, an "e" sound or an "o" sound--and I lose a lot of time trying to guess where the word might be listed.

2. The vocabulary provided is good, but not very extensive. You'll find yourself needing many words not in the book.

The best Persian dictionary I've found is the Aryanpur (also available at Amazon). It's correctly sorted, has a huge number of words, and--most importantly but most often overlooked--tells you what those unwritten short vowels are! But it's also pricy and too heavy to sit comfortably in your lap while you read. If I'm on the go and can't lug around the Aryanpur, this Learner's Dictionary is my second choice.

30 of 32 people found the following review helpful.
Qarib, vali kamel nist...
By Joel Ross
This is the closest thing to a complete, practical Persian-English dictionary out there. Still, there are errors in it, such as spelling and transliteration. The other glaring issue is that the Persian section is organized by English transliteration. This is counter-intuitive to all but the most elementary Persian learner. All other dictionaries I've used are arranged according to the Persian spelling. This is a particularly difficult issue if you one, are unsure of a word's pronunciation, or two, do not subscribe to the author's pronunciation. Persian is far from a standardized language, and the nuances of modern Persian pronunciation can make word finding difficult. The word mim-jim-mim-'ayn could be transliterated as either mojamma', mojamme' or majma' based on the Arabic. To look this word up in this dictionary, you need to know that the word is pronounced majma'. Lastly, there are fewer entries than one would expect from a larger-than-pocket-size dictionary. One positive is that every word has pronunciation in its entry and it is of recent print, so it includes neologisms and other words of recent convention which other dictionaries leave out. Another is that it has both English to Persian and vice versa. Far from perfect, but still very useful for the modern student. A good companion would be the Hans Wehr or Nicholas Awde Arabic dictionaries to help with Arabic-dervied vocabulary, which is about 60% of total Persian vocabulary. Xoda hafez.