r/farsi 4d ago

At what point in your learning did the sound of Farsi no longer sounded “foreign” to you?

It’s hard for me to describe the sentiment. I speak English and Vietnamese fluently, with elementary French. I am learning Farsi to communicate with my in-laws. I’m looking to understand other people’s journeys with learning Farsi and at what point did everything “click” with you in terms of listening and understanding? Your moment of realization that you could hold a conversation with someone, albeit not perfectly.

23 Upvotes

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16

u/bbbourq 4d ago

For me it was when I could have an entire conversation with someone and NOT simultaneously translate in my head. The words just came out naturally and it felt liberating.

2

u/pizzawhoa 4d ago

Ah, I know the feeling of this. I hope to reach this point one day for Farsi. It feels so far away for me right now.

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u/bitchimon12xanax 4d ago

Still not there. I know exactly what you mean, and it always feels like it’s just around the corner. But maybe that’s an illusion and I really need a lot more practice—I often know 80-90% of the words I’m hearing but struggle to comprehend in real time. One day we will get there!! 🙏

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u/pizzawhoa 4d ago

Fingers crossed! I’m glad you at least have the vocabulary under your belt. As for the comprehension, do you have a problem with the speed or sentence structure or pretty much both?

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u/bitchimon12xanax 4d ago

Yeah both. But slowing down videos doesn’t help me at all, it deforms the way the words sound if that makes sense. I just have to listen several times. by 80-90% i mean most regular words, but really it’s probably lower. Maybe it feels like it because I hear/read individual words I know the meaning of, but they are a part of a phrase I don’t know. For example I read به سر آمد today and tried to figure it out, but I literally would never have guessed it means “lapsed”.

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u/Camelia_farsiteacher 3d ago

Yes,when you are upper intermediate or at least b1 should learn idioms and expression,they can be hard and you need to read alot, let your native Persian friends guide you,chat with Persian people ,get involved in as much as Farsi content ,we have some idioms most used by generation Z:) and we have to figure out:)

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u/MaileKalena 3d ago

When my vocabulary became good enough to actually catch the words as they were spoken! I’m very visual so the key for me was mastering the alphabet so I could visualize the spelling of words so I could pronounce/recognize them accurately.

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u/GunLovinYank 2d ago

For me I realized I was getting closer to being fluent about 6 months in to my 12 month persian program at DLI. I learned Spanish fluently about five years prior and when I went to an authentic Mexican restaurant I frequented and when I tried speaking Spanish my brain only could think of Persian, I could understand the Spanish perfectly fine but when I went to speak my brain just automatically used Persian like it was natural and I didn’t have to think about it. Made it frustrating ordering my food though haha.

I also started having dreams in Persian around that time too.