یسراف ناریا زورما یسراف نابز شزومآ یتامدقم هرود یراوسهش اشونآ ۱ دلج دووتآ کیلب PERSIAN OF IRAN TODAY AN INTRODUCTORY COURSE VOLUME 1 ANOUSHA SHAHSAVARI | BLAKE ATWOOD This project would not have been possible without the generous support of the PARSA Community Foundation, the Department of Middle Eastern Studies and the Center for Middle Eastern Studies at the University of Texas at Austin and the encouragement and support of Kamran Aghaie, Kristen Brustad, Bavand Behpoor, and Chris Adams. We are especially grateful to our Iranian friends who agreed to be on film and in pictures and lent their voices to this project. Their presence made this book come alive! Many thanks to the following people who contributed to the textbook in immeasurable ways: The University of Texas at Austin Graduate Students: Steve Robertson, Kevin Burnham, Dena Afrasiabi, Christine Anderson, Mardin Aminpour Text Design and Photography: Rosa Shahsavari, Reza Abedi Videos: Mehdi Zarei, Scott Zuniga Actors: Shyli Yazdani, Negar Kherad Cultural Notes: Nassim Abdi Illustrations: Gholam Ahmadi Editorial and Production: Kristi Shuey Cover Design: Kristi Shuey and Blake Atwood Cover Art: © Faegheh Shirazi, acrylic on canvas. Printed by permission. Website Design and Maintenance: Suloni Robertson, Emilly Cicchini, Ran An, Christine Wu, and LAITS ISBN: 978-0-578-13002-6 © 2015 The University of Texas at Austin Center for Middle Eastern Studies and Shahsavari-Atwood. All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced or utilized in any form or by any means, electronic or mechanical, including photocopying and recording, or by any information storage and retrieval system, without permission in writing from the publisher. This work is licensed under the Creative Commons Attribution-Noncommercial-No Derivative Works 3.0 United States License. To view a copy of this license, visit http://creativecommons.org/licenses/ by-nc-nd/3.0/us/ or send a letter to Creative Commons, 171 Second Street, Suite 300, San Francisco, California, 94105, USA. T A B L E O F C O N T E N T S To the Student vii Tips for Using this Book viii To the Instructor ix Introduction to the Persian Alphabet xi Notes on the Pronunciation of Persian xiv Introductory Exercise xvi Unit1: Cultural Note: Greetings 1 2 Short Conversations: Hello, how are you?/ What is your name? Alphabet: alef, be, nun, zebar, zir, pish, pe, te, ye, vaav Vocabulary: List 1 Listening Comprehension: Greetings and Numbers Grammar: A Note on Names, Derivation, Word Stress, Syllable Structure Unit 2: Cultural Note: Greetings 2 23 Short Conversations: Thank you! Alphabet: dâl, re, ze, sin, shin, mim, e, he Vocabulary: List 1 Listening Comprehension: Greetings, What do I like? Grammar: Sentence Structure or Word Order, Subject Pronouns, Verb Endings Writing Exercise Speaking Activity Unit 3: Cultural Note: Introductions 48 Short Conversations: I am Asadi! Alphabet: jim, lâm, he Vocabulary: List 1 Listening Comprehension: Introduction and Asking Questions, About My Brother Grammar: The Verb “to be”, Negating the Verb “to be” Writing Exercise Speaking Activity Unit 4: Cultural Note: Food 63 Short Conversations: What would you like to drink/eat? Alphabet: che, khe, zhe, khâ Vocabulary: List 1 Listening Comprehension: What do I eat for Breakfast, Every Day conversation Grammar: Possession, âyâ Writing Exercise Speaking Activity Unit 5: Cultural Note: Diverse Iran 79 Short Conversations: Where are you from? Alphabet: fe, qâf, kâf, gâf Vocabulary: List 1, List 2: Numbers, List 3: English words in Persian Listening Comprehension: I Have a Class Today, Where Is Eram Hotel?, I am Sulmaz Grammar: Using Pronouns, Present Tense Conjugation, Counting Writing Exercise Listening Comprehension: I Have a Class Today, Where Is Eram Hotel?, I am Sulmaz iii Grammar: Using Pronouns, Present Tense Conjugation, Counting Writing Exercise Speaking Activity Language Game Unit 6: Cultural Note: Hospitability 101 Short Conversations: Who Is This? Alphabet: tashdid, sâd, zâl, eyn Vocabulary: List 1, List 2: Home Listening Comprehension: My House Grammar: Ezâfe Writing Exercise Speaking Activity Unit 7: Cultural Note: I Do Not Want to Bother You! 120 Short Conversations: How Old Are You? Alphabet: se, he, zâd, tâ Vocabulary: List 1, List 2: Numbers Listening Comprehension: My Plan for Tonight, Every Day Conversation Grammar: More on The Verb “to be”, Simple and Compound Verbs Writing Exercise Speaking Activity Language Game Unit 8: Cultural Note: Early Bird 140 Short Conversations: Good Morning! Alphabet: fe, qâf, kâf, gâf Vocabulary: List 1, List 2: Numbers Listening Comprehension: This Is My Friend, It Is Hot Today, Wrong Number!, What Time Is It? Grammar: Answering “yes” To A Negative Question Writing Exercise Speaking Activity Language Game Unit 9: Cultural Note: Befarmâ’id 152 Short Conversations: What Do You Do? Alphabet: tanvin, hamze, Sokun Vocabulary: List 1, List 2: prepostions Listening Comprehension: What Do You Do and Where Do You Live?, It Was Fun! Grammar: Possessive Pronouns, Counting, Asking How Many, Answeing How Many, There Is Writing Exercise Speaking Activity Language Game: Hoarders Unit 10: Cultural Note: Studying in Iran 166 Short Conversations: What Is Your Major? Vocabulary: List 1, List 2: Countries Listening Comprehension: Practice!, I Am Going to My Setâr Class Today! Grammar: Plural, Specific Direct Object Marker “râ” Speaking Activity Language Game Review Exercises 179 iv T O T H E S T U D E N T Khosh Amadid! Welcome to Persian! This textbook, Persian of Iran Today 1, represents the first in a series of textbooks aimed at teaching Persian to English-speaking students, and is followed by Persian of Iran Today, Book II. The present book aims to help you learn to pronounce the sounds of Persian and write its letters, and to begin speaking Persian. The materials will introduce basic vocabulary, including important expressions for polite interaction and aspects of Persian culture. The book is accompanied by audio and video clips on a website for you to use outside of class. The website (http://www.laits.utexas.edu/ persian_teaching_resources/) includes videos that demonstrate how to write the letters so that you have a model to follow as you work through the book. This book consists of an introduction and ten writing units. The introduction provides an overview of Persian and introduces the Persian writing system and sounds. The ten units present the alphabet in groups following an order designed to maximize your exposure to the Persian script from the beginning, meaning that transliteration will generally be avoided. Each sound that is introduced will be followed by a brief explanation of the writing of the corresponding letter, and video footage on the website will show how to write each of the letters. Each unit contains a number of recorded listening exercises and drills on reading, writing, connecting letters, and dictation. We have used only meaningful words in these exercises, but we do not expect you to learn these words; their purpose is merely to demonstrate sounds and stress. The vocabulary that you are expected to learn is listed in a section called vocabulary. We have also included in this book examples of authentic or “real-life” Persian from websites, newspapers, books, and magazines, and on the website you will find pictures of Persian signs from the streets of Iran. We have also included short cultural notes explaining some aspects of the situations that you will see in the clips. We believe that it is crucial for you to learn to recognize and produce Persian sounds accurately and master the Persian script from the outset for several reasons. First, you must learn to pronounce and write Persian correctly in order to communicate effectively with Persian speakers. Second, Persian sounds are not very difficult. Many non-native speakers have learned to pronounce Persian sounds accurately, and there is no reason why you should not expect to do so as well. Third, it is important to learn the sounds and writing system correctly now when you have the time to concentrate on them; later you will be concentrating on other aspects of the language, such as vocabulary and grammar. Finally, although all languages require a certain amount of exposure, time, and effort to learn, by mastering the Persian sounds and script from the outset, you will enhance your ability to learn the language and make your future interaction with the language more rewarding. v PERSIAN OF IRAN TODAY T I P S F O R U S I N G T H I S B O O K 1. Prepare for active participation in class. To do this you need to spend time outside of class listening to and working with the audio and video exercises. Listen to and write the new sounds and letters as many times as you need to in order to feel comfortable recognizing and producing them. Prepare the lesson assigned beforehand, so that you will be ready to read and write. Class time should be spent practicing, not listening to lectures. To access online resources: http://www.laits.utexas.edu/persian_teaching_resources/ 2. Once is not enough. Whether you are pronouncing new sounds, writing new letters, or studying vocabulary, you should repeat the activity as many times as you can. Repeat until you can produce a sound or write a letter easily. Remember that you are training your brain and your muscles to do new things, and this takes practice. Listen to the materials on the website as many times as you can, and go back over items that you missed on the homework. Although most of your studies now are visually oriented, you learned your native language mainly through hearing and listening, and not through reading and writing. Rediscover your native ability to learn through listening by devoting as much time as you can to the listening and dictation exercises while working through this book. 3. Study out loud. As you work through these materials, engage more than one faculty at the same time. Listen and repeat together. Repeat and picture the shape of the letter or word. Rather than write silently, repeat whatever you are writing out loud. The only way to train your brain and your mouth to speak this language is by doing; thinking about it is not enough! Practice speaking at every chance you get, whether with classmates, the dog, or yourself. Most successful language learners talk to themselves regularly. 4. Study with others. You are much more likely to study actively when you study with a partner. Every lesson in this book contains activities that are best done in pairs. Good group activities include dictating to each other and making up sentences and dialogues. 5. Make vocabulary study and review part of your day. Language is cumulative, and while you are learning new words and expressions, it is important to integrate the old in with them. Using the new to review the old will take some organization, but it will pay off in greater fluency and accuracy. When you learn new words, take the opportunity to work on previously learned sounds. When you learn new letters, go back to words you have learned only in spoken form to see if you can write any of it in Persian script. Pair up each new word with an old one. 6. Expect to feel tired occasionally. Being tired is a good sign: it means that you are concentrating, and that you are training your muscles to produce new sounds correctly. Remember that you will soon be able to do easily things that tire you at first. We wish you a successful and enjoyable learning experience! SHAHSAVARI | ATWOOD vi T O T H E I N S T R U C T O R This textbook, and the continuing books in the Persian of Iran series, are constructed around a philosophy of teaching and learning Persian in a communicative manner designed to maximize students proficiency. We ask that you, the instructor, read this preface as well as the Preface to the Student, and that you have your students read the latter and discuss it with them in class, so that everyone understands the principles underlying the structure and contents of these materials. In this volume, the alphabet is presented in a way designed to take advantage of both letter frequency and letter shape. Vocabulary is introduced according to function, not alphabet, but by presenting letters based on frequency, students will be able to write many of the words they learn using the Persian script from the beginning. In addition, we introduce our students to both formal and informal varieties, based on the principle that learning to speak in a culturally appropriate manner is a part of proficiency that should not be ignored. The extent to which you emphasize each variety will depend on your program and the needs of your students. These materials are designed so that students can do most of the preparation and actual learning of new material outside of class, in order for class time to be spent doing interactive activities, watching and practicing conversations, and working with Persian (instead of hearing about it). In this first edition, students have available to them audiovisual materials on the website, including visual footage demonstrating how to write all the letters of the alphabet, and dialogues, whose texts are found in the Appendix. We believe that it is crucial to expect a high degree of effort from students in preparing for class, and equally, that this effort must be rewarded by spending class time doing interactive and small-group activities that permit maximum participation by all students. Since the book is designed so that the students can do much of their learning outside of class, each person may work at his or her own pace, so that differences in learning speed need not affect the class as a whole. It is also important that students realize right away that the burden of learning is on them, because this helps them to become active learners. Finally, it is essential to follow through on the expectations you set. Do not reward students who have not prepared, and punish those who have, by “teaching” them what they should have done outside of class. The listening exercises are all meant to be done outside class as part of homework and preparation. We have specified the drills that are meant to be done as homework and those that are meant to be done in class as interactive or small group exercises and projects. We suggest that, in preparing your lesson plans, you aim to have at least some interactive work each and every class period, and that the time set aside for this increases as students learn more vocabulary so that, by the end of the book, you are spending 75% of class time with students working together speaking directly with each other. Small group work and pair work is essential for students to build skills. Accuracy will improve if students see it rewarded, and it will not suffer if we do not correct every single utterance. vii PERSIAN OF IRAN TODAY We believe that everyone can produce Persian sounds accurately and that it is necessary to encourage and even to expect accuracy from the outset. These early units are an opportunity for you and the students to focus all of your attention on the phonetic aspects of Persian, and it is also better to form good habits from the start. Your attitude as a teacher of Persian should be that everyone can learn to produce these sounds accurately. Each unit includes a vocabulary section complete with several exercises and activities that activate new words. Students should prepare the vocabulary and listen to dialogues on the website before class and be prepared to perform similar tasks in class. At this stage, it is not our goal for the students to write out the dialogues. Instead, it is good training for the students to develop confidence in their aural and oral skills at this stage, and they need to be encouraged to rely on their “phonographic” rather than their “photographic” memory. Everyone has natural aural and oral language learning skills; no one learned her or his native language through reading. While we have included short cultural notes in the book, we have not provided detailed lesson plans in order to give you the flexibility to proceed as you wish and focus on the aspects you deem important. Use the videos, pictures, and cultural notes as starting points to encourage questions and discussion, and expand as you wish. We suggest that you have students listen to each dialogue several times as follows: (1) Before explaining anything, have them watch for general content, then ask what they understood. (2) Have them watch again, as many times as necessary, to listen for individual words or expressions, followed by discussion and explanation of what they heard. (3) Have them watch a final time, after they have understood what is said, to focus on how it is said. After that, the students should be ready to try out the expressions themselves, so let them make up their own situations and act them out. Your own contribution will be vital to the success of these materials. The material in this textbook can be covered well in approximately forty contact hours, depending on the amount of time devoted to the various activities, assuming class time is not spent on lectures and students will devote one to two hours a night to homework. Most of the exercises in the textbook are meant to be done as homework. Spend as much class time as possible on activities that students cannot complete at home alone; such activities might include speaking and dictation. This approach stresses dictation because we believe that the mastery of sounds and the ability to relate sounds and writing must be developed early. Repeat sounds and words many times over, and have students repeat as a group to take the pressure off individual performance. Contact Hours Homework Hours Number of Weeks to Total Contact per Week per Week Complete Units 1-10 Hours 6 12 6-7 42 4 8 10-11 42 3 6 14 42 Hours to Completion Of course, no textbook can take the place of a good teacher. It is our hope that these materials will help you to enrich your classroom and make learning Persian an enjoyable experience for your students. SHAHSAVARI | ATWOOD viii I N T R O D U C T I O N The Persian Alphabet The Persian alphabet contains thirty-two letters consisting of consonants and vowels, and eight symbols that function as vowels and pronunciation markers, or as markers of certain grammatical functions. Units One through Ten will introduce these letters and symbols individually. First, take a look at the alphabet in the chart below, which shows the thirty-two letters. Starting in the upper right-hand corner, the chart reads across from right to left, which is the direction Persian is written and read. To see and hear the pronunciation of these letters, listen to Introduction-1 on the website. ت پ ب ا ح چ ج ث ر ذ د خ ش س ژ ز ظ ط ض ص ق ف غ ع م ل گ ک ي ه و ن The next chart shows the eight extra-alphabetical symbols. They include vowels, pronunciation symbols, and grammatical endings. These symbols will be introduced in Units One through Ten along with the alphabet. ـ ـِ ـ َ ُ ـ ء ـ ْ ّ آ ـ ً ix PERSIAN OF IRAN TODAY Special Characteristics of the Persian Script The Persian writing system has several major characteristics that distinguish it from its European counterparts: 1. Persian is written from right to left. One consequence of this ordering system is that Persian books, newspapers, and magazines open and are read in the opposite direction from European and American printed materials. 2. Letters are connected in both print and handwriting. Unlike languages written in the Latin alphabet, which are generally connected only in certain types of handwriting, Persian letters are written connected in both print and handwriting. The following are individual letters which are written one after the other in correct order, but which do not form a word written this way: ن ا ن When they are connected, however, they do spell a word “نان ” /nân/ which means bread. Notice that not all the letters in نان connect to the following letter. This is a characteristic of certain letters that you will master as you learn to write. See if you can identify the non-connecting letters in the following words: تقو تسود نز ردام درس As you learn the alphabet, note which letters connect and which do not, and when you write words, do not lift the pen or pencil from the page until you get to a natural break with a non-connecting letter. 3. Letters have slightly different shapes depending on where they occur in a word. The chart on the next page gives the forms of the letters when written independently; these forms vary when the letters are written in initial/medial and final position. “Initial position” means not connected to a previous letter, “medial position” is usually written the same as the initial position, except that it is connected to the previous letter, and “final position” means connected to the preceding letter only. Most letters have a particularly distinct shape when they occur in final position, similar to the way English can have capital letters at the beginning of words. The chart below gives you an idea of the extent of this variation. You will see that each letter retains a basic shape throughout; this is the core of the letter. If the letter has dots, their number and position also remain the same. Note that the last three letters, which all connect, appear to have a “tail” in their independent and final forms which drops off when they are connected and is replaced by a connecting segment that rests on the line. Try to find the core shape of each letter, its dots, if any, the connecting segments, and the final tail in the following chart. SHAHSAVARI | ATWOOD x