Simin Abrahams

The main strength of this book is that it introduces new grammatical topics at a gentle pace (in comparison to, say, Thackston). Explanations are bare bones but sufficient, and lessons progress more or less logically, building upon previous ones. There are ample example sentences to illustrate grammatical points, exercises, and passages to test your reading comprehension.

There are a few weaknesses, too, however. Firstly, there is no discussion about stress. Word stress is pretty systematic and consistent in Persian so this is something they could have at least given a brief overview of. It would have taken up very little space but would have strengthened the comprehensiveness of the book significantly in doing so.

Secondly, ezâfe is basically never marked. Considering the author marked all other internal vowels, I don't see why they wouldn't mark ezâfe. Beginners are exactly the audience that need to have ezâfe drilled into their head constantly, so not including it seems like an odd oversight. Thirdly, although vowels are marked, there are some occasions (typos?) where they were left out, leading to confusion. For example, how would a beginner (who doesn't know any Arabic or the loanword *vojud*) know how to pronounce باوجوداين without vowel markers?

Lastly, I think including a unit on the passive would have been appropriate. They covered all of the other basic grammatical necessities, making its omission that much more glaring.

All in all, good but not great. It doesn't deal enough with phonology or mark ezâfe enough to be a good choice for a student teaching themselves Persian from scratch. It would be a decent first semester classroom textbook, though. For the autodidact, Thackston would be a better (albeit more intimidating) choice.… (más)