{"id":4736,"date":"2015-12-17T15:30:30","date_gmt":"2015-12-17T15:30:30","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/eurotalk.com\/blog\/?p=4736"},"modified":"2026-08-25T13:15:40","modified_gmt":"2026-08-25T12:15:40","slug":"why-learning-persian-made-me-feel-fanta-stic","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/utalk.com\/en\/news\/why-learning-persian-made-me-feel-fanta-stic","title":{"rendered":"Why learning Persian made me feel Fanta-stic"},"content":{"rendered":"

Nancy Reynolds is a freelance writer from the USA,\u00a0who’s currently working on a novel.\u00a0 In her spare time she studies Persian and has vocabulary contests with her teenaged daughter who has studied Latin, German, Mandarin and Ancient Greek. Here’s her language story…<\/em><\/span><\/p>\n

\"Nancy<\/a>For some people, learning a foreign language is good for business, a school requirement or a necessity because of a move. For me, it started in eighth grade with French, but more recently, it was to understand some Iranian friends I made on the Internet. Although my friends all know English, when they wrote posts in Persian, I felt left out. Although the different alphabet seemed daunting, I had studied Cyrillic for Russian and had done well, so I figured I could learn another alphabet. One reason I keep at it is to be able to read more and understand more of the Persian in movies.<\/span><\/p>\n

A rewarding aspect of learning any foreign language is to understand another person. Values and concepts can be a direct result of the kind of language a person uses. Persian past tenses can distinguish between whether the life of a person in the past is still relevant today or not. We don’t have that in English. The term for a double bed in Italian is “letto matrimoniale,” implying that a person shouldn’t be sleeping in such a bed if not married. Which verb for “to be” you use in Spanish to tell someone she looks good will reveal whether you mean all the time or just today. <\/span><\/p>\n

One of my greatest challenges in learning Persian is having to do it outside of a classroom. My friends are very busy or want me to help them with English, so I get little practice with spoken Persian. EuroTalk has made a difference because it is fun and I can use it whenever I want. The promotional assertion that it is good for five minutes or for hours of learning is quite true.<\/span><\/p>\n

Ioana\u00a0at EuroTalk asked me what my favorite word in my favorite language is, but I don’t think she was expecting the answer I have. It is “love” in English. To choose my favorite word in Persian is a challenge! I guess it would have to be “salam”, which means “hello”. Why? I have learned hello in many languages.
\n<\/a><\/span><\/p>\n

It is a thrill to greet someone in his or her language<\/span>, get a stunned expression and then a broad smile. Such a simple word says I care about communication enough to step outside of my comfort zone.<\/span><\/p>\n

Sometimes a funny, weird or awkward situation has occurred when I used a foreign language with a native or another speaker. In French I unintentionally propositioned a friend! Fortunately, he knew what I meant. Two delightful moments speaking Persian with natives were when I asked “Khoobi?” It is the casual way to say “How are you?” They were quite impressed. <\/span><\/p>\n

A fun triumph, though, was reading the Persian on a soda can in a friend’s photo. Even though some of the letters were obscured, I still could read the well-known brand name: Fanta. I’ll drink to that.<\/span><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Nancy Reynolds is a freelance writer from the USA,\u00a0who’s currently working on a novel.\u00a0 In her spare time she studies…<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":10,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"_kad_blocks_custom_css":"","_kad_blocks_head_custom_js":"","_kad_blocks_body_custom_js":"","_kad_blocks_footer_custom_js":"","_kad_post_transparent":"","_kad_post_title":"","_kad_post_layout":"","_kad_post_sidebar_id":"","_kad_post_content_style":"","_kad_post_vertical_padding":"","_kad_post_feature":"","_kad_post_feature_position":"","_kad_post_header":false,"_kad_post_footer":false,"_kad_post_classname":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[5797],"tags":[3985],"class_list":["post-4736","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-persian","tag-general"],"acf":[],"lang":"en","translations":{"en":4736},"taxonomy_info":{"category":[{"value":5797,"label":"Persian"}],"post_tag":[{"value":3985,"label":"General"}]},"featured_image_src_large":false,"author_info":{"display_name":"Richard Howeson","author_link":"https:\/\/utalk.com\/en\/news\/author\/richard"},"comment_info":0,"category_info":[{"term_id":5797,"name":"Persian","slug":"persian","term_group":0,"term_taxonomy_id":5797,"taxonomy":"category","description":"","parent":0,"count":1,"filter":"raw","cat_ID":5797,"category_count":1,"category_description":"","cat_name":"Persian","category_nicename":"persian","category_parent":0}],"tag_info":[{"term_id":3985,"name":"General","slug":"general","term_group":0,"term_taxonomy_id":3985,"taxonomy":"post_tag","description":"","parent":0,"count":135,"filter":"raw"}],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/utalk.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4736","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/utalk.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/utalk.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/utalk.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/10"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/utalk.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=4736"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/utalk.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4736\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":10525,"href":"https:\/\/utalk.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4736\/revisions\/10525"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/utalk.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=4736"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/utalk.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=4736"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/utalk.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=4736"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}