Everything You Need To Learn Pashto
Pashto is an Iranian language spoken by some 40 million people, most of whom live in Afghanistan and Pakistan. It’s classified as a part of the Indo-Iranian subgroup of the Indo-European family of languages. It is the native language of the Pashtun people.
Pashto descends from Avestan, an ancient Iranian language. It is related to Dari, Tajik, and Persian, as they share common ancestor language, Middle Persian.
The language is written using the Arabic script, with a few modifications to accommodate the language’s phonetics.
Despite the fairly large number of native speakers, learning resources for Pashto aren’t as abundant as those for some of the other languages spoken in the region. That said, we do feel there are more than enough available to help you on your journey to fluency in Pashto.
Pashto Language Learning Books
You can’t go wrong with a good Pashto course/study book as your introduction to the language. Working your way through one of these books will give you a solid grounding in the language, as you’ll learn Pashto grammar, basic, everyday vocabulary, and how to build sentences, among other things.
Another important addition to your language learning library should be a concise English-Pashto dictionary. During your language journey, you’ll be exposed to many new words, and you’ll need a good Pashto dictionary to help you decipher their meaning.
If you plan on traveling to a region where the language is spoken, and need to learn the essential phrases quickly, consider grabbing yourself a Pashto phrasebook.
Pashto Children’s Books
When you’re ready to practice all of those skills you learned during your course, you can ease yourself into native language material by reading kids’ books in Pashto. As a beginner, you’ll find these books both interesting and rewarding, and you’ll pick up not only new Pashto words, but the structure of the language.
What’s great about some of the books on this list is that they’re dual language bilingual English-Pashto stories, meaning you can use the parallel English text to help you along as you read in Pashto.
Pashto Digital Courses
Learning languages through books not your thing? Then maybe a Pashto e-course might be what you’re looking for. With a heavy emphasis on building your speaking and listening skills, Pashto digital courses use interactive audio and/or video lessons to get you immersed from lesson one.
Pimsleur’s Conversational Pashto course is audio-only, and comes packed with 8 hours of language instruction. You’ll be able to access the course from any audio device, including your phone.
PASHTO AUDIO COURSES
