After years of failed language learning in the past, these two months were a revelation. The people I met were so warm that I was never left alone (even when I wanted to be alone!).īy the end of the trip, I was speaking entirely in Farsi from one day to the next, and had made many friends to whom I’d never spoken a word of English. I also crammed new vocabulary by using Anki flashcards in every spare moment. I met native speakers by couchsurfing in the cities, hitch-hiking between them. My first visit to Iran was in 2008, when I couldn’t speak a word of Farsi outside سلام / salaam (hello) and خیلی ممنون / kheyli mamnoon (thank you very much).īut in 2013, after learning a few introductions and some basic grammar and vocabulary, I spent two months of language immersion travelling alone in Iran. In fact, it’s inspired me to make a film in order to show Iran in precisely the opposite light, as a place full of incredible landscapes, diverse cultures and hospitable people. This is a misguided view, as I've discovered on numerous extended visits to the country. Many people (especially in the US) believe that Iran is a part of the world to be feared and avoided. This means that you’re unlikely to have to visit Iran itself to find native speakers to practice with… unless you really want to. Los Angeles and Toronto are such hotspots that they’ve earned the nicknames ‘Tehrangeles’ and ‘Tehranto’ among Iranians. There are also strong communities in Paris, Vancouver, Sydney, and New York. Here in the UK, for example, I can wander around West London and pick out Iranian grocery stores, restaurants, jewellers, travel agents and barbers. Practically every major city in the Western world has a strong Iranian community thanks to waves of migration during the 20th century. Nothing could be further from the truth.Īs well as its widespread use in the Middle East, Persian is still used throughout the Iranian diaspora, which is enormous. I once believed that learning Persian would be pointless because of the limited opportunities to use it. That’s about the same number of people who speak German. It’s also spoken in communities the world over, and the majority of its 100 million or so native speakers call it ‘Farsi’. That’s because these countries were once part of the Persian Empire, and have since developed their own dialects.Ĭonfused yet? All you really need to know is that Persian is the language of modern-day Iran, as well as a fair bit of the surrounding area. To complicate matters further, Persian is known as Farsi (فارسی) to its native speakers in Iran, Dari (دری) to those in Afghanistan, and Tajik (тоҷикӣ) to those in Tajikistan. ”Iranian”, on the other hand, refers to the nationality of Iran’s people. So the official language of Iran, to the English-speaking world, is still Persian. (Hands up if you thought Persia and Iran were two different places? I’ll admit that I did until quite recently.)īut the old name of the language stuck. But Persia hasn’t officially existed since about 80 years ago, when the King of Persia, Reza Shah, demanded that his country be referred to henceforth as Iran. Persian refers, logically, to the language of Persia. Let’s start by looking at three common myths about Persian… Persian has remained unchanged for centuries, so unlike in many other languages, you can experience world-famous Persian literature in the exact language it was written. Learning Persian won't just enhance your travels within the Persian-speaking world and its global diaspora, as it has done for me.
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