Teach Yourself Modern Persian Complete Course Package with Other (Teach Yourself Language Complete Courses)

I have certainly learnt a lot with this book but there are some things about it which left me quite dissappointed. First of all there are many words which you can't be sure how to read because nowhere in the book can you find the vowel signs to read them (not even in the dictionary in the end). Also, it makes no sense to ask the student to form sentences using the present perfect when this tense has not been introduced yet (examples of exercises demanding vocabulary or grammar which is not introduced until some lessons afterwards are numerous). Because of this and some other things I realised that the best way to learn with this book is actually skipping anything you don't understand (no matter how bitter the feeling you may get from this), go through the whole book and then start again from lesson 1. Many things will be much clearer.

I have been using this book for the last six months and have found it to be the best of its genre. I found the topics highly relevent and interesting since they deal with natural/realistic conversation, such as 'likes and dislikes' and 'going for dinner'. It doesn't concentrate on 'traveller's Farsi' (e.g. airport/hotel/greetings} like most of the other books available. Another plus is that having a CD is much more covenient than trawling through a tape. My only criticism would be that it tends to rush through the writing section too quickly for most independent learners, with regard to connecting the letters together. If you are on a Farsi course or have Iranian relatives they could help you but otherwise you might have to refer to another source to help you with writing. Nevertheless, in my opinion, this is definitely the best book available for learning Farsi/Persian.

Excellent book, CD's helped me a lot with words I would have other-wise found impossible to pronounce. Would not recommend for complete beginners though as it focuses a lot on Persian scrip reading and writing which is quite difficult to pick up. Apart from that would highly recommend.