Editor’s Note: This PersianPod101 review is up-to-date as of December 6, 2024. Please note this review contains referral links, however we have a strict editorial policy that says we only recommend products that we have used and think are legitimately worthwhile.
Persian is a truly fascinating language—one of the pillar languages of the Middle East and Central Asia. It is widely spoken in Iran, Afghanistan, Pakistan, Tajikistan, and other nearby countries, with many sizable Persian-speaking populations worldwide, including in Bahrain, Iraq, the UAE, Europe, Turkey, Australia, Canada, and the United States.
The language is known as Farsi—which literally translates to Persian—in Iran, Dari in Afghanistan (renamed for political reasons), and Tajik in Tajikistan (was named by the Soviet Union). Even though they each have their differences and local dialects, they all fall under the umbrella of Persian and are mutually intelligible to one another.
Persian is usually written in Arabic script—with the exception of in Tajikistan. However, it actually originates from a completely separate language family to Arabic (the Indo-European Language Family), and in fact shares many historical origins with most European languages and the languages of Northern India.
Learning Persian allows for a much deeper travel experience of Iran’s rich and diverse culture. Iran is home to over 20 UNESCO World Heritage Sites, featuring exquisite mosques and palaces, desert cities, and vast mountain ranges waiting to be explored.
In this article, we’ll take an in-depth look at PersianPod101—how the program works, it’s teaching approach, the pros and cons, how it stacks up among competitors, the cost structure, and the key features. We’ll uncover some sample lessons, break down the methodology, and assess its effectiveness as a comprehensive language program for learning the Persian language.
PersianPod101 Review Overview
PersianPod101 is a product of Innovative Language, a company that first started back in 2005 with JapanesePod101. Within their first year they got their first 10,000 students and they now offer over 40 languages!
So what’s the secret to their success? Well, the Innovative Language courses are structured using podcast-style lessons, with each lesson being centered around either a podcast or video. This makes it an excellent resource for listening—a skill many language learners find the most challenging.
PersianPod101 follows the same methodology and exact layout as all the other Innovative Language courses. From the main dashboard, you can track your progress, view your lessons, and contact your teacher (more on this later). You can then navigate to the lesson library, where you’ll find dozens of lesson ‘pathways’ featuring lots of engaging topics and course tutors.
You can add a lesson pathway to your dashboard by simply clicking ‘Add To Dashboard.’ The pathway will then be ready for you to work through in your own time, and you can track your progress. PersianPod101 allows you to fully customize your own syllabus, which makes it the perfect tool for those who aren’t a fan of traditional linear methods of teaching.
Once you’ve signed up to PersianPod101, you’ll be granted a free lifetime account as well as access to the Premium membership for the first 7 days (after this you’ll have to pay). There’s 3 levels of membership: Basic, Premium, or PremiumPLUS, each unlocking more and more features, such as:
- Unlimited access to podcasts & video lessons
- Interactive learning tools, quizzes and assessments
- Lots of knowledgeable and engaging native tutors
- Detailed pdf transcripts, lesson notes & checklists
- Flashcards, vocab lists & most common words list
- Learn on the go with the mobile app
Pros of PersianPod101
Pro #1: Vast Library of Videos and Podcasts
With over 1,140 audio and video lessons, PersianPod101 certainly isn’t short on content. You’ll discover a massive library of lessons with a diverse range of topics that are both interesting and relevant to daily life. The content is spread over five levels of expertise—Absolute Beginner, Beginner, Intermediate, Upper Intermediate, and Advanced—that roughly correlates to the CEFR scale, with Upper Intermediate corresponding to B1 level.
Pro #2: Line-By-Line Breakdown of the Dialogues/Audio
Most lessons have an authentic dialogue so you can hear the language in action, depending upon what the lesson focus is. You are first encouraged to listen to the dialogue in isolation to pick out words and phrases that you already know. You can then follow along with the transcript to see what you missed, which are broken down line-by-line for you to study at your own pace.
You can play the audio at full or half speed and choose to show the Persian script as well as the romanization of the English translation. By following this process and breaking it down line-by-line, you’ll quickly notice your listening skills start improving.
Pro #3: Content is Modern, Fun and Relevant
Unlike most textbooks, PersianPod101 has a strong focus on relevant and up-to-date language that people actually speak in Iran. You’ll find lessons that cover Persian slang words, social media phrases, and informal language. What’s more, we love how there’s a ton of cultural information woven throughout all the lessons. In fact, the lesson notes include an entire section dedicated to explaining cultural nuances, traditions, and norms.
Why learn a language if not to get an insight into the people who actually speak it? You’ll find topics on Persian holidays, pop culture, cuisine, artists and poets, family life, movies, and history. There is also a variety of topics that you’ll find very useful for actually navigating daily life in Iran, such as opening a bank account, asking for directions, and staying with a host.
While the quality of lessons do vary, the tutors are generally very engaging and the videos and podcasts are professionally made (much better than your average youtube video).
Pro #4: Skill-based Approach to Learning
So far, we’ve focused mainly on the listening aspect of PersianPod101’s methodology, but there’s also many lessons that give you a chance to improve your reading, writing, and speaking skills. In the lesson library you can filter all the lessons by category and media type. This way you can select lessons that focus solely on the skill you’d like to improve most.
There are reading lessons that take you through a series of miniature books as well as listening lessons that have you watch an animated video before testing your comprehension. By centering lessons around specific skills, PersianPod101 allows you to focus on the areas you need to improve the most.
Pro #5: Lots of Handy Vocab Tools & Bonus Features
Alongside the main lesson pathways, there are loads of extra features to build up your vocabulary repertoire. The most useful feature, in our opinion, is the word bank, which allows you to save specific vocabulary you encounter during your lessons and review it later. In your word bank, you can revise these terms, categorize them, and group them into flashcards. This way, you’ll never lose a word!
There’s also a dictionary, a list of the most common words, vocabulary lists, ‘word of the day’ emails, and common Persian phrases (more on these tools later).
Cons of PersianPod101
Con #1: Not Structured Particularly Well
Unfortunately, we found that the lessons pathways were a bit all over the place and the official curated pathways that are recommended to start with are not always the best. It can be a bit hit and miss and takes a little exploring to find the topics and grammar points that you’re looking for. This way of learning may suit those who prefer to learn independently, but as a structured syllabus we found it to be lacking.
For this reason, you may find PersianPod101 to be most useful as a supplementary tool alongside a more structured textbook or methodical syllabus. Otherwise, without a structure to follow, you could easily develop gaps in your knowledge or find yourself running into complex grammar structures that you haven’t had a chance to grasp first.
It takes a certain amount of self-awareness and discipline to assess your language needs and select the lesson pathways that are right for you. So, unless you have the PremiumPLUS membership which grants you access to a one-on-one teacher, you might end up more confused than when you first started.
Con #2: Quality Can Vary
As we mentioned, some pathways are better than others, and some tutors are more engaging than others. Thankfully, the large amount of content allows you to browse around until you find a tutor or lesson pathway that really interests you. This flexibility is rare among other language learning platforms, where you’re often stuck with the same teacher and a fixed order of topics.
Con #3: English Heavy
I’m a big fan of immersion when it comes to learning a language. It’s important to expose yourself to as much authentic material as possible to familiarize yourself with the sounds and patterns, helping you think in Persian rather than relying on translation or rules—which can be slow and exhausting.
PersianPod101 has a large variety of dialogues spoken by native speakers, which is awesome, but we felt like there was way too much English being interjected within the lessons. Although it is important to get the understanding across, the constant English explanations don’t help with actually getting used to hearing the language. What you can do, though, is actually listen to the dialogues without the lesson videos (and then listen to the explanations afterwards).
On the other hand, the amount of English does decrease rather dramatically as the levels progress, with level 5 videos being conducted in almost complete Persian (with subtitles).
Features of PersianPod101
PersianPod101 come with a buffet of features, making it one of the top language programs on the market. Continue reading to see what it offers:
From your dashboard you can see all of your pathways and track your progress which includes the number of lessons completed, flashcards reviewed and hours studied. From here you can also read the latest news and see any new lessons that have been recently published. New content gets added to the platform regularly.
Within each lesson you have the option to record your own voice and compare it with that of a native speaker. This is a great way to break down the specific sounds and to work on your own pronunciation. Just click on the microphone symbol next to any vocabulary or phrases and hit record. You can also listen to the native speaker at full or half speed.
In PersianPod101, everything is downloadable for offline learning. This means you can learn virtually anywhere and cram in extra lessons while on the go, when you’re exercising, waiting in line, washing the dishes or on a lunch break.
Not only are the transcripts and lesson notes available as PDFs, but you’ll also get the option to download a lesson checklist. This ensures that you are completing everything correctly, which is a great motivational boost to track your own learning and record your progress.
There’s literally hundreds (yes, hundreds) of vocab lists for every occasion. You can filter them by topic or by what’s most popular. Learning through vocab lists helps you to build an associative web of vocab that stems from a single topic. Within each list you’ll find around as many as 50 related words, each with their own example sentence and audio clip. Again, you have the option to record yourself alongside the native speaker and also to add any specific words to your word bank or a flashcard deck.
This feature is optional – you’ll receive an email every day with a new word and how it’s used in context.
As already mentioned, you can curate your own flashcard decks and save any words to your word bank. If you are familiar with any other flashcard tools such as Anki or quizlet then you’ll feel right at home with many of the same features being incorporated into PersianPod101. Inside your word bank you can assign labels and export your entire list as a pdf or excel file at any time.
Persian has over 220 million unique words! With so many ways to express something it’s no wonder Persian is referred to as one of the most poetic languages in the world. To avoid feeling overwhelmed, it’s best to start with only the most common words. In this section you’ll find a list of 2537 words that are spoken most frequently in everyday language. You can even narrow it down to the most common 100, 200, 500 etc.and filter by category (colors, clothing, animals etc.)
The dictionary is nothing special, but it does have the audio clips at full and half speed for each entry which makes it very useful.
Signing up to the Premium+ membership will give you direct one-on-one access to a professional language teacher. Together you’ll create a personalised learning program that focuses on your strengths and weaknesses, taking into account your own learning goals, what you want to achieve, and the timeframe you have in mind.
Your teacher will track your progress and assign you regular assessments and homework tasks. The schedule is fully flexible and is based upon your needs and commitments. Once you reach certain milestones in your program, you’ll be awarded with CEFR-based certificates that you can put on your CV and prove to potential employers that you are proficient in Persian.
Lesson WalkThrough
To give you an idea of what to expect from the lessons, we’ve provided you with a sneak peek of three sample pathways. But first, let’s walk through the process of a typical PersianPod101 lesson:
- First you’ll read the lesson introduction to give you an idea of the lesson’s objective and overall theme.
- Next, you’ll listen to the podcast or watch the video.
- Then, you’re prompted to go through the lesson notes to cement what you’ve already learnt. The grammar points, vocab and cultural insights are summarised in an easy and digestible manner.
- You’ll then go back and read the line-by-line transcripts whilst listening to the audio to confirm your understanding.
- Review the audio again and compare your pronunciation against the native speaker’s using the self-record fucntion.
- Study the vocabulary list and listen to the audio clips.
- Add your favorite words to your word bank and review until memorized.
- Study the grammar list’s detailed explanations along with the examples that are given.
- Practice, practice, practice! Make use of the flashcards, writing questions and leave comments in the comment section to practice what you’ve learnt.
You don’t have to do everything in this order—this list is according to their specific checklist. For instance, you may want to listen to the dialogues only, or just go through the grammar points – it’s entirely up to you!
Some Example Lesson Pathways
Here’s some sample pathways for the Beginner, Intermediate and Upper Intermediate levels:
Pathway: ‘Culture Class: Essential Persian Vocabulary’ (25 Lessons, 2.5+ Hrs of Audio Content)
Content: A series of fun and fast paced lessons that focus on building up essential vocab and phrases through a range of different topics that all center around the Persian culture. You’ll discover popular Persian dishes such as ‘kookoo sabzi’ and ‘aabgoosht’, modern pop culture trends & musicians, info about different cities & tourist attractions, traditional clothing and traditional culture. Each lesson is around 5-10 minutes long and contains a short dialogue, transcript and detailed cultural insights into the Persian culture.
Pathway: ‘Extensive Reading in Persian for Intermediate Learners’ (25 Lessons, 5+ Hrs of Audio Content)
Content: A series of miniature books to really dig deep into those listening skills. Topics include ‘Earth’s Water’, ‘Dinosaurs’ and ‘Living in the City’. Every short reading lesson includes the full downloadable miniature book with line-by-line translations and accompanying audio clips.
Pathway: ‘Listening Comprehension for Intermediate Learners’ (15 Lessons, 45 Mins of Video Content)
Content: 15 short and snappy dialogues on a bunch of interesting and useful topics such as ‘At the Hairdresser in Iran’, ‘Where in Iran Did You Lose Your Wallet?’ and ‘Reading Persian Job Postings’. Every lesson is structured the same way – a question in Persian followed by an authentic dialogue with animation. These lessons can be very challenging at first, especially since the whole lesson is in Persian, but you can always turn to the transcript and vocab section for help.
Who Should Buy PersianPod101?
PersianPod101 is an impressive language tool, but it’s not for everyone. Those who’ll get the most out of PersianPod101 are those who:
- Are independent learners and study best by selecting topics they are most interested in
- Are serious about learning persian and can dedicate time every day for practice
- Are looking for some basic persian language skills for work or travel
- Are interested in persian history and culture and are looking to uncover the culture through language
Who Should NOT Buy PersianPod101?
Those who might not be a best fit for PersianPod101 are those who:
- Prefer to follow a one-track syllabus that has everything you need to know in one place
- Require one-on-one help (unless you opt of Premium+)
- Lack the time or motivation for learning Persian
PersianPod101 vs. Competition
PersianPod101 isn’t the only language program for learning Persian – lets see how PersianPod101 stacks up against it’s competitors.
PersianPod101 vs Chai and Conversation
Chai and Conversation is very similar to PersianPod101 in that it focuses on audio lessons, specifically two people having a casual conversation in Persian. It really immerses you in the culture and feels much more intimate than PersianPod101.
While it may sound like a godsend at first, it is actually structured poorly, in our opinion. The conversations follow a phrasebook-style approach, gradually teaching you more words as the episodes progress. It’s great as a supplementary tool for gaining more exposure to the native language and culture but not as a primary study resource.
Chai and Conversation offers both monthly and annual memberships ranging from $20 to $30 per month for a monthly subscription and $16 to $24 per month for an annual subscription.
PersianPod101 vs Persianlanguageonline
Persian Language Online is a free resource that offers Persian videos lessons for beginner to intermediate students. For something that’s free of charge, it’s definitely worth checking out, especially since it has lots of downloadable mp3s of native speakers along with the transcripts.
However, you get what you pay for. The user interface feels rather clunky and it’s best used alongside a more comprehensive program or textbook.
PersianPod101 vs Rosetta Stone
Rosetta Stone is very comprehensive. However, many students have expressed concerns about the outdated language it teaches. It doesn’t reflect how people actually speak Persian in daily life, and native speakers often note that the phrases and vocabulary are mostly only used in formal speaking and writing.
Rosetta Stone offers 3-month ($15.95/month), 12-month ($10.50/month), and Lifetime ($149) subscription plans.
Colloquial Persian by Abdi Rafiee
Colloquial Persian is an excellent beginner’s course in Persian with a clear and methodical approach. The only thing lacking is the listening and speaking practice, which is why PersianPod101 would be a perfect supplementary resource alongside this textbook.
Colloquial Persian varies in price depending on if you purchase it new or used ($30-$50). It’s available on Amazon and in most reputable book stores.
PersianPod101 Cost
PersianPod101 offers three monthly subscription plans: Basic, Premium, or PremiumPLUS.
All three levels will give you complete access to the full lesson library (at every expertise level), the full vocabulary lists, and the latest news. Below is a full breakdown of the different subscription plans:
Basic Subscription $4/month $2.80/month (using this link)
- Complete access to all podcasts & video lessons
- Access to the app on android, iphone & ipad
- Fully downloadable lessons & lesson notes
Premium Subscription $10/month $7/month (using this link)
The Premium Subscription includes all the Basic Subscription features PLUS:
- The complete line-by-line audio transcript (downloadable)
- Exclusive premium iTunes feed
- Access to all bonus lessons
- Interactive quizzes & assessments
- Personal word bank access
- Core 2000 word list
- Spaced repetition flashcards
Premium PLUS Subscription $23/month $16/month (using this link)
The Premium PLUS Subscription includes all the Basic and Premium Subscription features PLUS:
- Professional assessments
- A personalized learning program created around your needs
- 1-on-1 Instruction from a professional Persian language teacher
$1 for One Month Premium
If you sign up here for a free account, you’ll receive a one-time offer for the Premium level at just $1 for the first month. This is a great deal and an excellent way to determine if the subscription is worthwhile for you.
Click here to sign up for a free lifetime account and get access to the $1 monthly trial.
Related: See all our Discount / Coupon Codes for PersianPod101
PersianPod101 Review: Conclusion
Overall, PersianPod101 is certainly a great option if you are serious about learning Persian. The teaching style and methodology might not suit everybody, but we felt the unique concept of customizing your own syllabus as well as selecting your own lessons kept everything very fresh and interesting, especially since one of the main challenges of learning a language is that you can get bored and stop practicing.
With a massive library of comprehensive lessons covering all aspects of Persian language and culture, you’ll have plenty of material to explore on your journey to fluency. The interactive vocabulary tools, quizzes, assessments, fully downloadable transcripts and notes, enjoyable and engaging videos, and the option for one-on-one instruction will certainly satisfy the needs of a serious learner of the Persian language.
Our Verdict: 4.5/5
It’s excellent as a listening tool and packed with tons of cultural insights and high quality content, however as a standalone language program it’s best used as a supplementary resource alongside a more structured textbook or syllabus.
Make sure you sign up using the link below – it not only helps support our website, but also gives you 30% off at the checkout:
Josiah is a digital nomad with a passion for language learning and adventure travel. He’s taught English as a foreign language for many years and is currently learning Georgian, French and Chinese.