Doing Dari

Persian has multiple dialects. I have been focusing on the one from Iran, often referred to as Farsi here in the U.S., but there are only 30 Pimsleur lessons for it. 

For Dari, the Persian dialect spoken in Afghanistan and one of Afghanistan’s two official languages (Pashto is the other), there are 60 Pimsleur lessons.

60 Pimsleur Lessons for Dari!

That is double.

So far I have resisted the persistent temptation to try Dari, because my research—consisting mostly of asking numerous people who speak Persian about this—suggested I would just get too confused. 

However, like stubborn people the world around, I ultimately ignored really good advice (sorry, guys!) and am now on lesson 12 of Dari. 

Yeah, there are challenges. For one thing, the verb endings are sometimes different. The id endings given for formal second-person verbs in the Farsi Persian lessons have given way to something that sounds like en for comparable verbs in Dari.

In the Farsi lessons, Pimsleur offers mersi for thanks (مرسی). In the same sentences in the Dari lessons, I have been taught tashakor (تشکر), which I believe is also widely understood and used in Iran. (Someone please correct me if I am wrong.)

I am trying to hold on to the Iranian verb endings while still getting the pretty similar Dari endings right.

Around lesson 8 I thought I might have to abort the mission, but now I am relaxing into it. There is so much overlap between the two dialects that I think this will help me more than it will mess me up.

And if it doesn’t, I will warn others from my desert island when my ship gets wrecked!