Welcome to the first episode of the Persian Learning Alphabet Series. In this video, you will learn to write two vowels and three consonants of the Persian Alphabet: “â, a, b, m, and n.” These are among the most frequent Persian letters, so you can start writing some simple Farsi words by learning them. But before jumping into practice, reading the following notes can be helpful.

• In the introductory video, we mentioned that Farsi is written from right to left. If you are not used to this writing system, you may find adapting to it challenging. So, if possible, buy a notebook designed for Persian or Arabic script. If not, start from the back of your notebook to get used to the right-to-left system.
• For most Farsi learners pronouncing “â” and distinguishing it from “a” and sometimes “o” is problematic. Remember that “a” is a short back vowel, “â” is a long front vowel, while “o” is a short front vowel, pronounced with rounder lips. The following pattern shows the Persian vowels’ place of articulation[1].

[1] Note that the pattern is based on IPA symbols, which we simplified to make learning the Persian alphabet easier for you. To learn more about Farsimonde’s transcription protocol, refer to https://farsimonde.com/farsi-phonetics/.

• We mentioned the importance of the dots in the Persian letters a couple of times, but our ten years of Farsi teaching experience are making us repeat it: “take the number and the place of the dots seriously.” The Persian alphabet has six letters with the same written shape as “b”: ٮـ ٮ The only thing that distinguishes them is the number and position of the dots. If it is difficult to remember, try to find a code for the place of the dots, such as “b” below and “n” not below.

• The only thing that distinguishes them is the number and position of the dots. If it is difficult to remember, try to find a code for the place of the dots, such as “b” below and “n” not below.
• There is no upper and lower case in the Farsi script. But the shapes of the letters usually differ according to their place and whether they can connect to the letter before or after them. In the first Persian Alphabet Lesson, the only letter that cannot connect to the letter after, among the five you have learned, is “â.” So letters after “â” are written in the same form as at the beginning of the words. For example, “âbân” is written as “آبان” in Farsi since “b” and “n” cannot connect to the “â” before them. Letters at the end of the word are either longer, like “ب,” or below the line, like “ن.” While watching the video, take notice of the letters’ proportions at the beginning, middle, or end of the word.
• In this video, you learn a short vowel, “a.” When short vowels are in the middle of the word, they are written over or below the letter they are connected to. Take “man” [I / me in Farsi] as an example. You need to put “ َ ” on top of “م” and write it as “مَن.” But we usually do not show the short vowels in the middle, so later, you will learn to write the word as “من.” When the short vowels are at the beginning of a word, we need to use the vowel sign “ا”. For instance, “amn” is written as “اَمن”.