language learning – persian or russian, which books?

title says it all really…
i’m no linguist (my GCSE french result was ‘a miracle’ according to my teacher), so i’d prefer to learn the easiest. looked in a russian dictionary, its all gobbildygook… while persian is similar to arabic, right??? russian might be more useful in the long term i guess…

and which books are any good? my local book shop has BBC and oxford teaching book/CD, but can shop on amazon if needs be.

applying for an internship in tajikistan, hence needing basics in one or the other.

If it’s any help, SOAS (School of African and Asian Studies) in London uses:

http://www.amazon.co.uk/Complete-Modern-Persian-Yourself-Languages/dp/0340802669/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&s=books&qid=1233931488&sr=8-1

or

http://www.amazon.co.uk/Persian-One-Dundon-Afrazeh-Sorour/dp/1904916074

Good luck.

thanks, will look further into those…

Russian in 10 minutes a day,

Also have a look at Book depository, cheaper than amazon , and no postal charges , well recomended.

also first thousand words in russian , a kids book but will give you an insight .

Persian (Farsi) is written in Arabic script, but it’s not related linguistically. I would recommend Farsi as there are fewer speakers in the UK.

Slight hijack, but whatabout, say, japanese?

thank again, i’ll look in more detail. the kids book sounds like i may have a chance 😉

ok, wasn’t aware that farsi and arabic weren’t related, unfortunately… a friend of mine studies arabic, though i could get some hints 😉

swift – funny you should say that, but i learn japanese 2 years ago :p however, in tajikistan, i don’t think there are that many speakers of japanese 😉

There arent that many in grimsby either, but i fancy it.
Also saying youre no linguist, you obviously speak english, and now apparently japanese, so you arent doing bad 😉

lol, its a real nice language to learn, and not difficult to speak – pretty much say whats written, its not tonal like chinese.

having said that, i spent a year learning, and had to take the beginner class twice just in order to catch up with the rest. also helped having a cute teacher 😉

http://www.randomhouse.com/livinglanguage/freedownloads.html

Try this link very good value and its free

Russian is a beautiful language once you can speak it. I was fluent years ago as my parents employed a housekeeper who happened to have been a professor of metallurgy at Kiev University prior to her emigrating from USSR.
What I remember is that Russian literature is so different in Russian to what you might know translated. Take your time, sleep with Russian girls/boys, do whatever it takes but learn it. You won’t regret it.