A largely text-based browser course with audio examples.

Learn Persian

This is a great resource for practicing the language, while also being exposed to actual Persian books. The conversion from books to video are carefully and tastefully done. The content varies in terms of difficulty - there are both materials for absolute beginners, as well as somewhat more advanced stories.

Storytime in Farsi

Fairly active and friendly group on reddit

Reddit: r/farsi

Once installed in your browser, this will let you lookup any Persian word on any website, and allow you to add it to your vocabulary deck. You can then study that vocabulary using a spaced-repetition UI on their website.

It is laser-focused on that task, with no unnecessary fluff. The Persian word lookup is pretty decent. It won't show you any results for certain inflected grammar forms, though most words have a result.

Browser extension to lookup & save vocabulary

Masterlingo

Storybooks Canada takes stories from the 

, and publishes translations into Persian (as well as many other languages).

They have everything from simple stories for beginners, to fairly advanced language. And what's really great is that all of the stories come with an audio track, by a native speaker, that can be played section by section. 

And if you struggle, there are easily accessible English and French translations to help you along.

If you are a subscriber to farsi.school, you can find all those stories in our 

Children's stories in Persian, with pictures and English translations.

Storybooks Canada

This is our own project. We happen to think it is pretty neat, but we are biased.

It's like Yabla, or FluentU, but for Farsi. We select interesting Persian-language content, create high-quality subtitles and translations, and then make sure we define the grammar of every single word. This means that whenever you are unsure what something means, we can tell you exactly what the form is, which word it comes from, and what that word means.

In addition, everything is transliterated, so don't worry if you are not comfortable with the Persian script yet.

Authentic Persian Videos with Interactive Subtitles

Farsi.School

Very no-nonsense execution of this idea. Every song has Persian subtitles, the transliteration and an English translation, and there are plenty of  artists to choose from, and all the big Persian pop stars make an appearance.

YouTube channel with numerous Persian songs with subtitles, transliteration and translation.

Persian Lyrics

A coffee mug with Persian verb conjugations tables printed on it.

Persian Conjugation Mug

Memrise is a hugely popular Spaced-Repetition system for studying vocabulary. While it does not officially advertise support for Persian, it's catalogue has a large number of pre-made decks of cards created by the community, and of course, you are free to add your own words you want to study.

A widely used alternative for Spaced-Repitition learning is 

Popular vocabulary study tool with lots of community-made word lists.

Memrise

Proficiency in Persian

The best English/Farsi dictionary I have seen so far is actually the English-language Wiktionary, which sports a significant number of entries for Persian words, and often comes with the usual goodies you'll find in a Wiktionary: inflection tables, pronouncations, etymology.

The English Wiktionary of course also contains entries for English, and so you'll also be able to lookup an English word, and often, you'll find a link to the Persian translation. It's not as user-friendly as a dedicated two-language dictionary, as you'll be browsing through a list of translation into dozen of languages, but it will work.

Has a fairly large number of Farsi words.

Wiktionary

This guides you through the whole alphabet and then some. The production quality at times is quite low, but some people find them mesmerizing to watch.

A video series showing how to write Persian.

goodcyrus's Persian Writing Videos

Discord Channel: Farsi Study Hour

This is the only frequency dictionary of Persian I have seen so far, and it is very good. In contrast to most word frequency lists you can find online for the language, which just split a sentence by space characters, the authors here went through the trouble to process their corpus with a morphological analyzer. So you won't find for examle 

 in the list - rather, they correctly count it as being in fact the third person singular of the verb 

There are still some disatisfying limitions. For example, because an automated process cannot tell if the word کرد in their corpus is a form of the word 

, they have to list at as its own entry, therefore counting neither 

They explain their methodology in great detail in the first chapter of the book, with reference to a number of papers, which is great to nerd out on, if you are into this kind of thing.

A Frequency Dictionary of Persian

Glossika is trying something new. They give you sentences in Persian, in both translation with pronounciation, and script. You study those sentences by being confrontend with them repeatedly, typing them out, or pronouncting them yourself. They'll be repeated again later in the future. In a way, it's a spaced repitition system with whole sentences. They system will add the sentences for you to learn. The sentences you are learning are organized in a sort-of course form, introducing new grammar concepts along the way - though there seem to be no actual explanations of grammatical concepts.

An interesting idea of theirs is having you copy a sentence by typing that you see right in front of you. It's not practicing recall, rather, they say, it will help you associate the sounds you hear in the audio with the written version of the language as you learn the sentences. You can type not only in Persian script, but also in romanization, which is pretty neat, at least in principal.

Persian is just one of the many languages they support. As such, I don't think it got the love it deserves. For example, when typing in romanization, it expects you to type "tw" instead of "to" for "you", as it does not understand that the character و here is a vowel.

Course based on spaced repetition of sentences.

Glossika

Collects a number of different dictionaries, some of them very specialised, such as 

6155 words and abbreviations about chemistry

. It's not just English either, but includes Persian-Arabic, Persian-Italian and many more, including mono-lingual Persian-only.

A meta dictionary combining multiple Persian dictionaries, of different languages.

Vajje

App-based course, available for iOS devices and Android.

Mondly

Gooya

An Etsy Shop selling posters and cards illustrating simple Persian words, targeted at children.

LittlePersian

The English/Persian dictionary, like all digital versions of Aryanpour, seems to only have a dataset for English to Persian. The Persian to English lookup seems to be simply generated based on a reversal of the former, so if you look up a simple word like پول (pul), you might expect to to find "money", but here, you will be first given things such as "lucre", or 

Digitized version of the Aryanpour dictionary

AriaDic

The idea of this site is giving you videos from Youtube which have subtitles in your native language, and the language you want to learn. Persian is just one of the languages it supports. The Persian/English pair has 68 videos, at the time of this writing.

Unfortunatly, a good number of them seem to have English audio (and subtitles in both languages). I think at the point where you are watching English videos with Farsi subtitles, it stops making sense. I believe, though though I could be wrong, that YouTube does not actually let developers access the audio language of a video, which might explain why the system came up with those English videos.

They do offer a transliteration, but since is is generated from a Persian script which lacks vowel marks, it is basically unreadable. You can lookup words in Wiktionary, though that breaks down whenever a Persian word has any kind of inflection.

What's great is that the source code for the website 

Youtube videos with subtitles and word lookups

Zero To Hero

Lovingly designed, bilingual English/Farsi picture books for children. Both physical and ebooks are available.

Englisi Farsi

A deep dive into the Persian grammar, compiled by the Department of Middle Eastern Studies at the The University of Austin, Texas. While I feel the material at times could be organized and presented a little better, it is a very exhaustive walkthrough of all the grammatical structures. 

The websites also features high-quality audio pronouncations throughout, as well as 

Grammar & Resources, University of Texas at Austin

A very basic online course teaching you some vocabulary.

Loecsen

Persian-English English-Persian Learner's Dictionary 

This is the best dictionary for learners I have seen, because of some very sensible decisions: First, to include the English transliteration (which will give you the pronouncation). More importantly, the entries are listed 

in alphabetical order according to the transliteration. 

A small critique would be the lack of usage examples. It's really just Persian/English word pairs.

Dehghani Learner's Dictionary

A Comprehensive Persian-English dictionary

 only, and does feature transliterations.

While you can get it as a physical book, an online version is available by the University of Chicago. There are even apps available for both 

Content-wise it no doubt shows it's age, and the way it is presented - full pages from the original dictionary rather than individual word entries - is a bit strange. But it will be useful resources for deeper study of older texts in particular.

Another classic dictionary published by the same university is the 

Classic Persian->English dictionary from 1891, with transliterations and mobile apps.

Steingass

This dictionary has an interesting backstory. The guy who runs it in his free time does not actually speak a word of Persian. There is an 

article about him and the dictionary in the German newspaper TAZ

Dictionary based on community-submissions

FreeDict Farsi/German

This is the only tool I have found which can take text written in the Persian alphabet as input, and generate the Roman transliteration (i.e. Finglish) from that. This is actually a huge challenge, because the Persian script will lack the vowel information that you'd want in the Roman transliteration. In addition, some letters will call for a different roman character based on their context. This is why sometimes you'll see stuff such as 

 - this is what happens if you just map every character in the Persian alphabet to a Roman equivalent.

Taranevis is smart enough to give you the actual Finglish, as much as that is possible (I assume in some cases it will have no choice but to guess). It also uses the 

 romanization scheme, which is an interesting choice (read more about 

Taranevis

Los-Angeles based Persian-language radio station

Radio Hamrah

The set of lessons on this blog don't follow any structure. Rather, they resolve around idiomatic expressions, or a subject relating to Iranian culture. The group behind it is a fantastic bunch who clearly care about sharing their love for the language.

Combines short lessons with real cultural insight.

Contemporary Iran

Small Publisher of Books for Children and Learners

Bahar Books

Navid Fazel's resource is so extensive, it really deserves to be published as a book. But it also clearly targets people with a background in linguistics. It is full of specialist terminology, and spends a lot of effort on categorizing and classifying.

I would think that someone starting to learn the language would very quickly feel lost, but for those more advanced seeking a reference, this will come in handy.

Unfortunately, on occasion the right-to-left text on the page does not interact correctly with the English left-to-right text, which can be annoying.

Very academic discussion of the Persian grammar

Dastur

you can hover over every word, and you'll see the translation. There even used to be audio, allowing you to listen to each word, though that is broken now - the files are missing. The ability to listen to a reading by the author of the whole book still exists.

Interactive book with lookup for each word

The Vice Principal by Houshang Moradi-Kermani

Mohsen and Hanieh are two native speakers who moderate every episode of this podcast. The episodes range from material for beginners to fairly advanced. I like that they focus on immersion: There are generally no long explanations or discussions in English to distract you.

, and through it you'll get access to the episode transcriptions.

Structured audio classes for all levels, with transcripts

PodGap Podcast

There have been a bunch of different number of TEDx Talks in Iran, and you can watch those videos on YouTube - in rare cases, there will even be Persian-language subtitles.

This is obviously not exactly "easy" content, but can be great for advanced learners who are in need of demanding material.

I am aware of the following Persian-language TED events:

TEDx talks that were organized in Iran, rarely with subtitles.

TED Talks

Not Persian-specific, however, the Persian section is pretty active.

HiNative

Dinolingo

A large selection of Persian-language podcasts.

Tehran Podcast Directory

This little book really is short enough to easily read through it in 5 days. It's really very no-nonsense, focusing on essential explanations and then giving you a bunch of words to read. with the letters you already learned.

Nothing more is really required. You'll want to practice more once you are done with this book to become a fluent reader, but this is the core instruction you need.

Learn to Read Persian in 5 Days

A real gem. In addition to many other things, this contains one of the most concise, well-organized 

 that works with both Persian script as well as roman transcription.

It was a great help to me when I was coding the grammar-parser of 

, and also my inspiration to start the page you are reading right now.

, and if you find is site useful, I encourage you to support him.

Verb conjugator and concise, but extensive grammar resource.

Ali Jahanshiri's Personal Website

Reddit: /r/persian

A huge amount of videos are available across every possible spectrum and subject. 

Beginners searching for easier material might want to have a look at the 

, which features a number of cartoons, including Western properties such as "Boss Baby" with Persian voice actors.

 of Iranians playing video games, similar to 

The company behind the site also produces some of their own content, such as 

Aparat

Produced by a charity tasked with promiting Persian language learning, this website offers both 

carefully produced, short animation videos

 that come with an English translation, a glossary and dialogue sheets. They are ordered by increasing difficulty, and as such they are quite suitable as source material for self-study.

Persian Language Online

Memrise: Read and Write Persian

This will give you the conjugation table for a Persian verb. Conveniently, it lets you input a word in any form, including in a transliterated shape. Pretty neat: You can also have it display the English translation for every individual form.

Cooljugator Persian

It's Rosetta Stone. They are a fairly well-known brand in language learning, and popularized the idea "let's learn like children do, entirly through immersion". In practice, this means you will not see any explanations in English; and because you don't understand the language you are learning, really no explanations. Many people strongly dislike this, but you cannot argue with their success as a company.

In practice, you'll see pictures representations of the words until you get it. And they don't do this in a dumb way. For example, in the very first slide, they'll try to get you to recognize the relationship between 

 (water). They'll also throw you right away into a complete sentence like 

, which you will not understand at this point; but you will be able to pick out the words you learned 

.

The Persian Edition is of high-quality; there is nothing at all wrong with it. There are even some special features designed for the language, such as an interactive alphabet overview.

In addition to the main lessons, there are a couple of special modules. One teaches the pronouncation (they ask you to speak each segment of a word individually). The Grammar module, having the limitation of not being able to actually explain the grammar, relies on showing you, for example, a picture of two people and highlighting the plural ending. For the reading module, they will highlight one or two characters in a sentence, and ask you to pronounce that individually, until you learn how to associate the script with the sounds.  Finally, the Writing module is essentially teaching you how to type on a keyboard. In a sense, it feels like
an extension of the reading module; you'll learn to associate the characters with the sounds
(and then you also have to find them on the keyboard).


Where I think it definitely breaks down a bit is that they rely on the Persian script (there are no transliterations), and expect from you, for example, to pick between two Persian words very early on, when you simply aren't ready to read that yet - because the Reading module only has thought you the first two characters so far. 

Solid application of the Rosetta Stone methodology

Rosetta Stone

Persian Alphabet App

Supports Farsi/English, Farsi/German, Farsi/Italian and Farsi/Arabic pairs.

Simple word-list style lookups (no grammar) in both directions.

FarsiDic

Strictly speaking, this is not specifically for language learners (though there is a decent amount of such content there as well, including idioms and Persian music with translations). But beyond that, it deserves a mention simply because of the great insights into Iran and it's society and culture; I like to read it when I have some down time, and before I know it, I have this urge to work even harder to learn the language.

My Persian Corner

High-quality Persian-German and German-Persian dictionary.

Langenscheidt German/Persian

A very nicely designed website, sourcing a number of dictionaries, both monolingual, and bilingual. Unfortunatley, the UI itself is in Farsi only, so it is not that accessible for learners. Also, you'll run into the frequently encountered 

 here as well (which I gather comes from generating a reverse-dictionary). You can also search for English words.

Dictionaries used for the source data are 

, as well as a large number of "specialist" dictionaries, such as IT, chemistry etc.

Abadis

unilang Persian Subforum

On the very popular WordReference site you can find a place to discuss basically any one of the world's language. Persian shares a group with it's cousin's such as Urdu, Hindu or Dari, but it's actice community is sure to be able to help you with your query.

Busy forum for questions about the Persian language

WordReference Indo-Iranian Languages Forum

I'm quite fond of this app. Sure, like all systems which support many dozens of languages, you can't completely shake the feeling of your course coming off an assemby line, but it comes much closer than most. The content is organized into sensible units of instruction, they actually explain the grammar (though not as deeply as I'd like), and they seem to care about getting smaller details right. 

So for example, you not just have transliterations and diacritic marks, but the app also indicates stress. Every word has an individual pronouncation. And all of this works not only within the excercises, but also within the instruction texts itself - you can tap any Farsi word.

Also worth nothing: You'll often have the option to see both a literal and a natural translation. And both the original Farsi and the translation are color coded to help you understand which parts relate. Very cool.

The way the app works is itself quite interesting. It's almost like an interactive audio book. You can read the explanations youself, or have someone else read them to you. You can sort of scroll through a chapter at your own pace, and go back whenever you want. Granted, a large part of the process is "Do you know how to say?" prompts, which can get a bit monotonous.

Ultimately, you have to love a product that counts "Pirate" and "Shakespearean English" amongst it's product offerings.

Polished interactive course with original ideas.

MangoLanguages

A 14-episode video series about a series of friends running a Cafe, specifically designed for language learners, and with good production value. It was produced by the 

Department for Middle Eastern Studies at the University of Austin Texas.

With their agreement, we have made those videos available with 

Cafe Denj

I love this book. It teaches you a single letter, then has you practice it by reading and writing. Also fun: You'll be asked to find the letter in a block of text, which is, I am told, what children do as well when learning the alphabet. For reading, you'll be reading words such as 

so no need at this point to actually understand the Persian language.

Persian Script Hacking

Despite being advertised as a podcast, this is really a very comprehensive audio course. Each lesson comes with a transcript and a vocabulary list. It may not feel as lovingly crafted as 

but the library of materials is extensive. 

 without signing up, and you'll also be able to access for free a number of 

, complete with audio pronounciations and transcriptions.

I do not appreciate that as part of their marketing, they agressively spam YouTube, including with 3h vocabulary videos 

where the Persian script is written the wrong way

Not really a podcast, but an extensive audio course.

PersianPod101

Farsi123

Large number of text-based online lessons. Best of all: Completely free. Clearly, a huge amount of work went into this project; it's a bit of a shame that the presentation is somewhat lacking.

Extensive, free, text-based course on a blog.

Communities

Reddit: r/farsiFairly active and friendly group on reddit

unilang Persian Subforum

WordReference Indo-Iranian Languages ForumBusy forum for questions about the Persian language

Even more links