Learn Persian with Chai and Conversation

This is a vocabulary sprint, which means you can listen to the lesson no matter where you are in the learning process. It's just a way to get a number of vocabulary words in your tool belt.In this Persian/Farsi lesson, we learn the words for different animals. We'll first go over animals covered in the book 'Brown Bear Brown Bear What Do You See, which you can see translated into Persian in this blog post. We then go over a series of other animals, and other words and phrases associated with animals. Enjoy!

In this lesson, we introduce one of the greats of Persian Sufi poetry, Omar Khayyam. Khayyam was a 12th century poet and a true renaissance man- in addition to being one of the most well known Iranian poets, he was also a famed mathematician and astronomer. This shouldn't be surprising, however, as these disciplines greatly informed one another.This poem, which we are calling khosh bāsh, or 'be glad', is one of my favorites, and something I consider a sort of mantra in life. In it, he reminds us that life is fleeting, that we all will eventually die, and therefore, now that we are here, we should be glad.

In this last part of our series on Forough Farrokhzad, we learn the final part of the selection of the poem we've been learning. In addition, we learn about three birds that feature prominently in the poem that play a large part in the symbolic structure of the poem. These birds are the crow (kalāgh), the eagle (oghāb), and the mythical Iranian bird, the seemorgh (seemorgh). As Forough Farrokhzad explores her relationship and the role society and nature play in her relationship, she evokes these different birds. Each bird plays a pivotal role in her understanding of her relationship and of her self.

In this fourth part of the Persian language/Farsi lesson on Forough Farrokhzad's Fathé Bāgh, or Conquestion of the Garden, we go over the following section of the poem, along with all the vocabulary and phrases associated with the words learned: و صمیمیت تن هامان، در طراریو درخشیدن عریانیمانمثل فلس ماهی‌ها در آبسخن از زندگی نقره‌ای آوازیستکه، سحر گاهان فوارهٔ کوچک میخواند va sameemeeyaté tan hāman, dar tarāreeva derakhsheedané oryāneemānmeslé falsé māheehā dar ābsokhan az zendegeeyé noghreyeeyé āvāzeestke séhar gāhān favareyé koochak meekhānad and the intimacy of our bodies,and the glow of our nakedness like fish scales in the water.I am talking about the silvery life of a songwhich a small fountain sings at dawn.  

This lesson covers a section of the poem Conquest of the Garden, or Fathé Bāgh, by Forough Farrokhzad. This portion of the poem is:همه میترسندهمه میترسند، اما من و توبه چراغ و آب و آینه پیوستیمو نترسیدیم hamé meetarsandhamé meetarsandamā man o tōbé cherāgh o āb o āyeené payvasteemva natarseedeem Everyone is afraideveryone is afraid, but you and Ijoined with the lampand water and mirror and we were not afraid. The Youtube video which claims to be Forough Farrokhzad reading the poem is linked here.In this section of the poem, Forough brings up an important custom in Iranian weddings.

This lesson is an introduction to one of Iran's most lauded modern poets, Forough Farrokhzad. An extremely influential voice in a time of great change in Iran, she wrote about the nature of being an artist and an independent woman in a society that often did not make these pursuits easy. Here we learn more details about this extraordinary woman's life, and analyze one of my favorite poems of hers, Conquest of the Garden (fathé bāgh) with musician Fared Shafinury.

In the first part of our detailed study of Rumi's poem Rooz ō shab, we cover the first two lines, which are:dar havāyat bee gharāram rooz ō shabsar ze pāyat bar nadāram rooz ō shabWe go over the vocabulary and phrases in this segment of the poem, and also learn some concepts that are related to the words we are learning. We also learn about the Sufi concept, dar havāyat, of the intimacy of breath.