Farsi Friday Week 6: Trashy TV Shows & Other Learning Aids


You might have noticed that Week 4 and 5 of my series on learning Persian did not appear. You might also have noticed that this corresponded with my first big book launch. Unsurprisingly, there is a connection here!

The bottom line is that starting a new publishing company — which is essentially what I’ve done to get Janapar out to the public — has been difficult. Most of this has to do with my time management skills (or lack thereof). I have a habit of setting the bar impossibly high and running myself into the ground in an attempt to meet my own standards.

But I’m in Cumbria, and it’s almost impossibly easy to forget work, nip outside and do something like this…

FoldBikeRafting 2

…which is yet another reason for language learning having been so difficult to squeeze in!

But the storm is over, the flashcards are piling up again, and I’m less than a month away from departing for Iran, where I’ll be based for the best part of the spring.

As well as conversing daily with Tenny and building a stockpile of vocabulary that’ll be useful in the outdoors, I’ve also found a rare educational reason to watch the otherwise inexcusably trashy Iranian version of Come Dine With Me (بفرمایید شام):

[youtube]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KhKRfwC3Pgo[/youtube]

What better way of familiarising oneself with colloquial mealtime parlance amongst guests?!

I’ll be revealing more about the trip itself in next week’s post. It’s undergone a few changes, but the goal remains the same: to take a big leap forward in my 2013 mission to become fluent in another language, and put it to use on a new expedition.