Persian · Dialect course
A dari language tutor online, taught by someone who actually speaks it
Dari and Iranian Farsi are mutually intelligible and they are not identical. If you are working with Afghan communities, being taught Tehrani Farsi with a footnote is not good enough.
- Around 25 million speakers
- Afghanistan
Who this is for
Is this the right course for you?
Aid and resettlement workers, interpreters, researchers, and people with Afghan family or community connections who need Dari rather than Iranian Persian.
What you cover
What the lessons cover
- Dari pronunciation, including the vowels that differ from Tehrani Farsi
- The Perso-Arabic script from scratch if you need it
- Everyday conversation: family, hospitality, food, travel, work
- Vocabulary specific to Afghanistan rather than Iran
- Formal and respectful register for interpreting and casework
- Understanding Afghan media and music
Dari is the Afghan standard variety of Persian, and it is taught here as its own course rather than as a set of adjustments to Iranian Farsi. The two are mutually intelligible, and for the people who most often need Dari — resettlement caseworkers, interpreters, aid staff, and family members — the differences matter.
Why the distinction is worth making
An Iranian-trained tutor teaching Tehrani Farsi will give you a language Afghans understand and an accent that marks you clearly as having learned somewhere else. For social work, interpretation and community roles, that distance is a real cost.
Register matters more than usual here
Much Dari learning is for professional contexts where formality, respect and precision carry weight — casework, medical interpreting, legal settings. Lessons build the polite and formal register early rather than leaving it until intermediate level.
Dari questions, answered properly
How different is Dari from Iranian Farsi?
They are standard varieties of the same language and speakers understand each other readily. The differences are in pronunciation — Dari retains vowel distinctions Tehrani Farsi has merged — plus some everyday vocabulary and formal usage. If your work is with Afghans, learning Dari specifically is worth it and takes no longer.
Is Tajik the same language too?
Tajik is the third standard variety, spoken in Tajikistan and written in Cyrillic rather than the Perso-Arabic script. Spoken Tajik and Dari are close; the writing systems are not. If Tajik is what you need, say so and we will tell you honestly whether we currently have a tutor who can teach it.
Can I learn Dari without the script?
Only up to a point. Spoken Dari can be started without it, and every learner who stops there plateaus, because there is no substantial written material in transliteration. The Perso-Arabic alphabet is 32 letters and takes most adults three to four weeks. We teach it alongside speaking from the first month.
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farsi tutor online — every level and every course we teach in Persian.
Start with a free Persian trial lesson
You meet the tutor, they work out where you actually are, and you both decide whether to carry on. If we are not the right fit, we will say so.