In part 2 of What Easy New Language to Learn? I would like to draw all of your attention to the exotic East.
The Iranian language Persian or Farsi is found on the Indo-Iranian branch of languages, thereby making it a relative, albeit fairly distant, of other Indo-European languages. It is spoken in 10 countries and natively by 60-70 million people.
WHY BOTHER WITH PERSIAN?
Due to the countries where it is spoken, I foresee, like many, that the Persian language will soon be an important world language, and an essential learn for all linguaphiles or media moguls.
In addition to this the language is interesting... it is written in an aesthetically pleasing script. The same script that renders all the wealth of beauty found within great Persian Literature such as, Attar's The Conference of the Birds, One Thousand and One Nights and Yeki Bud Yeki Nabud (Once Upon a Time.) OR, THE PRINCE OF PERSIA :L
So, how difficult exactly is Persian/Farsi to learn..? Stupid question huh?.. Well, at least based on the post title!
Welcome features...
Persian verbs in the PAST tense all conjugate regularly! ABSOLUTELY NO EXCEPTIONS. In fact, conjugation, as a whole, is pretty straightforward... except for a sometimes irregular PRESENT tense STEM... But, that poses no great setbacks!
ARTICLES... THINK AGAIN!
Articles such as 'Le' 'La' or 'Les' in French, 'La' and 'El' in Spanish or the 'der' 'das' and die's etc, found in German... DO NOT EXIST in Persian... this surely saves a lot of dictionary time, and spares annoyance.
GENDER... THINK AGAIN!
Say good bye to the Female, Male, Neuter and other grammatical genders found in other European languages such as Spanish, French, German, Italian and even Norwegian.
VERBS
All verbs end in -dan or -tan!! BUDAN - TO BE
REMOVE -AN = PAST TENSE STEM (3RD PERSON HAS NO SUFFIX)
EX. HE/SHE/IT WAS = Bud
Garm bud, means... It was warm (garm) or این گرم بود.
SOME DIFFICULTY... IT SEEMED INEVITABLE.
As you can see from above, Persian is written in a Perso-Arabic script, meaning, that it has a non-Roman alphabet which has to be learned. This script however, isn't too difficult, sure it'll pose problems to begin but overall it's ok... there is some variation to be found, but don't panic!
This script is beautiful looking, and once learned will amaze people when being written by your smug selves! Here are a few helpful things that will get you well on your way!
Where to begin... Get a good course book... TRY THIS ONE
