I have a Persian fiancé and in the early days of our relationship, I was not thinking about learning Persian (or Farsi) as it did not seem necessary to me. However, after a while, I noticed that my fiancé’s mother and family and friends speak in Persian with each other and with him most of the time. They usually had some short conversations with me in English, but pretty much almost everything else was happening in Farsi!

   A few times my fiancé tried to translate some of the conversations for me but it did not work that well because they were talking fast and he was also talking with them in Farsi in the middle of his translations for me! So it was clear to me that I needed to learn Persian, especially because I wanted to know what my future mother in law is saying in Farsi to my future husband!
   I asked my fiancé to tell me the best way to learn Persian and speak the language like them. He told me that I might be able to learn some formal Farsi through books and classes, but that I won’t be able to really communicate in Persian orally unless I spend a few years in Iran which certainly was not in our plans.

    Honestly, it was not the answer I was looking for, so I decided to search for myself and see if I can find a course to learn Persian. What I needed was an online course because I did not have time to attend a regular language class and did not want to add another item to my already busy schedule.
   After doing some online search I found a few online courses that claimed they can teach me how to “speak” in Farsi. Among them, there were the very famous ones that have software which can listen to your voice and correct your pronunciations and whatnot. I was pretty much sure that I found what I was looking for, but to be on the safe side I also asked my fiancé to take a look at the sample lessons of those famous online courses and tell me which one is the best.
   To my astonishment, he told me that none of them was what I was looking for! He told me that I won’t be able to speak in Farsi using those products even though they have listed “speaking” as one of the skills developed as the result of using their products! He explained to me that memorizing some formal Farsi sentences is not equal to being able to speak informal Farsi.

   He also told me that in reality, the Persian language that Iranian people use in everyday conversations is very different from the formal version of Persian, and what those famous online courses teach is only the formal version of the language, and what those courses mean by “speaking” the language is actually kind of misleading because saying formal Farsi sentences aloud is not really equal to speaking in Farsi.
   I did not know any of these, and to tell you the truth I was upset that these famous courses only pretended to teach me how to speak in Farsi. I did not want to give up as I needed to learn Persian, so I decided to search more and see if there are any other courses that could teach me how to speak in Farsi.
   And then I found “Fluent Farsi”. They claimed that in their videos they teach Spoken Farsi and they listed the differences that I was told exist between formal and informal Farsi and promised to teach the informal Farsi, or as they call it “Spoken Farsi”. This was exactly what I was looking for! I watched their sample lesson video and asked my fiancé to watch that sample lesson too. My fiancé was kind of surprised that such a course in teaching Spoken Farsi even exists, and after watching the sample lesson he confirmed that the sample lesson is indeed a lesson on Spoken Farsi.
   I bought their course two months ago and I have practiced the material whenever I have time and it really works for me as I do not need to attend a class at a specific time. Since watching and learning the lessons I can make SPOKEN FARSI sentences myself which is truly awesome! I was able to learn Spoken Farsi through Fluent Farsi lessons even without knowing the Farsi alphabet because their teaching system works in a way that I can learn to speak in Farsi without a need to read or write in Farsi.
   Their Spoken Farsi packages also contain a series of videos in which they teach how to write and read in Farsi. Initially, I was not interested in learning the Farsi alphabet, but as they have already offered these lessons in the package, out of curiosity I began to watch those videos too, and before you know it, I learned to read in Farsi!
   I can say that their teaching method certainly works for me because I can say many correct Spoken Farsi sentences now. The course material is easy to follow and for each lesson, there is also a practice section to solidify the learning of that lesson. I also recommended Fluent Farsi to a few of my Facebook friends who were interested to learn Spoken Farsi and from what they told me I know that they bought the course and began to learn Spoken Farsi too.
   My future mother in law is kind of not very happy that now I can somewhat understand what she is saying to my future husband! I guess she needs to find another language because my Persian is getting better and better!
   I just thought to share my Spoken Farsi learning journey in this post to let those of you who might be interested to learn Farsi know that there is actually a course online for Spoken Farsi, and it worked fine for me.

​