Persian-English English-Persian Learner's Dictionary

The most helpful thing about this dictionary for me is that it includes both Persian script and a roman transcription. If you know Persian script it will give you the consonants, but the transcription gives you the vowels that are often missing from other dictionaries (as well as consonant doublings and some other details).Another helpful feature is that the entries give both stems of simple verbs, e.g. both *goftan* and *guy-* ('to speak'). In both the English-Persian and the Persian-English dictonary entries, both stems are shown. However, you cannot *look up* a Persian verb by its simple present stem. For example, you can look up *goftan* if you know that form, but if you run across *mi-guyand* in written form, there is no entry under *guy-* in the dictionary, and so no way to look it up. (On the other hand, there is a helpful list of common simple verbs in the Introduction, which could often be used for that purpose.)In general, looking up Persian words that you have found in writing can be problematic. All the Persian entries are transliterated into an English-like spelling, which includes vowels, and are ordered accordingly. So if you're trying to look up وجود for example, and don't know what the vowels are, you won't know whether to look under *va*, *ve*, or *vo*... or *vajavad*, *vajud*, *vajoved*, etc. Thankfully, there are other dictionaries in which you can look up words by their Persian spelling. But then you may still be left not knowing what the vowels are.Others have mentioned that the dictionary contains errors. For example, some parentheses appear in the wrong place or are facing the wrong way, which is confusing. (I can sympathize... parentheses are hard to get right when typesetting bidirectional text!) Another example of an error is the statement that "the stress on proper names is on the first syllable." This is not true in general: only when you are addressing that person (vocative).In spite of its limitations, the dictionary is a handy reference. I will probably use it most often to look up the vowels of a new word that I've encountered in writing, or to check one of the stems of a simple verb.

I finished all 12 units of Rosetta Stone's Persian (Farsi) Course. I contacted R.S. customer service to find out exactly how many words I had learned, but they were not able to answer my question. So I bought this wonderful dictionary. I read the entire dictionary, highlighting words I had learned on Rosetta Stone. Certainly, there are a few words that I learned on R.S. that did not appear in this dictionary; however, I was able to identify 979 words that appear both here and in Rosetta Stone.Unlike another Persian dictionary I bought, I was not able to identify any mistakes in the Persian-English English-Persian Learner's Dictionary. So I trust it. Although as a newbie I would've appreciated the phonetic order of Farsi words in the second half - the second half is useless if you wanted to look up a Farsi word in alphabetical (opposed to phonetical) order. But Google translate solved this dilemma for me.

I have had the pleasure of marrying a Persian and have spent over a quarter of century working on the language with an large array of tools and dictionaries. Although I can get by with basic polite Persian ("mother-in-law Persian" I think of it as), I have been frustrated almost beyond words, at least words I can cite here, by the fact that almost all English-to-Persian material never gives the actual pronunciation of the Persian words you find when looking up the English. No doubt the market is responding to the fact that Persians trying to learn English vastly outnumber English-speakers heading in the other direction. But there is also pedantic purism involved, since language teachers (I have been one myself, as well as a speaker of several languages) have a single-minded notion of what the ideal learner should learn. Essentially, what they want is to produce a totally fluent and highly literate speaker of the target language. The fact is that all of us adult-language learners have different needs and goals.Obviously, completely mastering the spelling of Persian sounds is an admirable although long-term endeavour. But given the uselessness of the Arabic alphabet when it comes to an Indo-European language, it is impossible to predict how to pronounce a Persian word without already knowing it. This dictionary, like most dictionaries for languages with non-phonetic scripts (e.g. Chinese, Korean), provides out front a transcription of the Persian sounds, then supplying the Persian script itself. Kheyli-mamnun, Agha Dehghani. Dast-etun dard na koneh!While I'm on the topic let me express myself in a way which will surely irritate many Persians, especially the nationalists among them. Too bad Persians didn't rid themselves of the "colonial alphabet" imposed on them centuries ago, aka the Arabic one. The Turks did, and devised their own Roman style alphabet, one which makes the learning of Turkish, much more difficult in fact to an English-speaker than Persian, decidedly easier, though of course the Turks had reasons of their own.

This is a pretty specialist niche in the UK market so there aren't many options if this is the kind of dictionary you need - but if you do, then this is a really good one to start with.It is aimed at beginners and perhaps intermediate level. The format is like this:- first half of the dictionary is English to Persian. Words are listed in order of English alphabet, and for each word you get the Persian word in English letters then in Persian script. Note that the Persian script does not include the vowel marks that some beginner books include. Each entry is quite minimal, so there is no description of the meaning of the word nor other information about the word. The exception to this is verbs, where both the infinitive and present stem are given.- second half of the dictionary is Persian to English. Each entry starts with the Persian word written in English letters, then the same word in Persian script (again without vowel marks), and finally the English word. This half of the dictionary is listed in alphabetical order of the Persian words as they are written in English letters.Overall the dictionary is just over 300 pages long so it is far from comprehensive, but certainly good enough for beginner (and maybe intermediate) students.Given the few options in the market for a dictionary like this, I find it invaluable. Highly recommended.

Others have already explained how this dictionary works. Let me just add one thing. The only reason this book does not deserve five stars is the poor binding quality. They literally fall apart. I have already bought three of these dictionaries. With the present price of £22, this is getting expensive.

Very good for anyone learning the language. It has phonetics and Farsi alphabet.

This is a rather basic dictionary - just a list of words E-P/P-E with no idioms or usage help. The P-E side is listed alphabetically under the pronunciation so if you see a word in P script it might cause a problem figuring out the vowels correctly in order to look it up. It's a learner's dictionary, as it says, so it's a fair start but it's too limited to serve for very long.

I'm learning to speak, read and write Persian (Farsi). This is the dictionary I've been seeking for 18 months: it is both English-to-Persian and Persian-to-English, and has each word in both Persian script and in Finglish (transliterated text). This dictionary's great innovation for English-speakers unfamiliar with, or still learning, the Persian alphabet is that the Persian-to-English half of the dictionary is based on the English spelling and alphabet. Therefore if you hear a word, you can look it up very easily, without knowing how to spell it in Persian characters. The other point of difference from other dictionaries is that the translation of the English word is given in both Persian characters and phonetically, in English characters, which is a great help with pronunciation. The treatment of verbs (infinitive and present stems) is also helpful. There's a few short simple grammar notes in the Introduction. This is a well-thought-through presentation of 18,000 (they say) entries very suitable for learners.