4 ms·

Tarof is so infuriating that, if you are a foreigner who wants to learn Persian, going to Tajikistan instead might be recommended: I don't know if the practice

Tarof is so infuriating that, if you are a foreigner who wants to learn Persian, going to Tajikistan instead might be recommended: I don't know if the practice never quite existed there in such an extreme form, or the Soviets stamped it out, but communicating with Tajiks is always so much more straightforward than with Iranians. What always apalls me is foreigners traveling in Iran who rave about how hospitable the local people are, without bothering to learn about tarof. It is likely that the vast majority of invitations to people's homes were not sincere, and by taking locals up on their not-actually-intended offers, those foreign travelers are probably causing great inconvenience (which their hosts will however do their best to mask).

rvense 6y ago
Tajikistan is a very different vibe to Iran, though. There's not much cosmopolitan about Dushambe. Also, if you learn to speak like a Tajik, Iranians will probably think you're dim, or at least sound like it. But yeah, I remember eating out alone in one of my first nights in Iran, so already marked as a weirdo, of course, and the waiter says "Qabel nadare!" when I ask for the bill, and I'm very confused, and I get out my dictionary because I don't know the word, and he just starts repeating the phrase louder and louder at me like they joke about the English doing when someone doesn't speak English... it just wasn't a good time for anyone. I did pay, though.
- eganist 6y ago
  > Iranians will probably think you're dim, or at least sound like it. But we won't tell it to your face. We'll be quite nice to you up front (taarof) and then will backbite like nobody's business. If you want to learn Farsi (or Tajik), please, go to Tajikistan. For your own good, learn it there instead. Or Kabul, for that matter.
  - rvense 6y ago
    Actually, after my month of language lessons in Dushambe I came back to university, and we were a group who had a meeting with the Iranian ambassador here. There was a round of introductions and I said that I had just spent a month in Tajikistan, and the ambassador looked at me and said that it sounded like I had started speaking like those people and I should stop it. In a friendly, "for your own good" sort of tone.
    - eganist 6y ago
      > There was a round of introductions and I said that I had just spent a month in Tajikistan, and the ambassador looked at me and said that it sounded like I had started speaking like those people and I should stop it. In a friendly, "for your own good" sort of tone. And now you've run into another one of our culture's more disgusting trends - bigotry. I'm sorry you had to experience it, and I'm sorry for our people consistently dumping on Tajik and Afghan peoples. I'm embarrassed you had to witness that kind of casual bigotry; there's nothing invalid about any group of people for any reason, including dialect. Second and third generation westernized Persians will do a much better job of accepting you for your effort at learning the language without taking pot shots at how you learned it or from whom you learned it. --- -2 points, yikes. Never change, HN.
      - rvense 6y ago
        I actually thought it was hilarious. Once in a blue moon I get to speak a few sentences of Persian, and I try to overemphasize the Tajik traits, just because. The young Afghan guy I met in Shiraz who was honest with me but told everyone else he was from Mashhad and constantly lived in fear of being found out and fired and dumped by all his friends, that was a lot less funny.
- Mediterraneo10 6y ago
  > Tajikistan is a very different vibe to Iran, though. There's not much cosmopolitan about Dushambe. I actually like Khujand more, it is definitely more multiethnic than Dushanbe. > Also, if you learn to speak like a Tajik, Iranians will probably think you're dim, or at least sound like it. It depends on what you are learning Persian for. Quite a lot of Westerners who have studied Persian have done it out of Middle Eastern/Central Asian areal studies needs, or because they wanted to learn to read the wealth of Persian literature. In those cases, going to a Persian-speaking country can be helpful because direct immersion can boost one’s vocabulary learning, but in the long term one doesn't intend to actively speak the language so much, and so it doesn't matter much if one initially learns a variety of Persian that some Iranians find distasteful. Note that even if one learns Persian within Iran, inevitably one would be picking up regionalisms that people from other parts of Iran nitpick – Iranians can be such snobs about dialects and accents from within their own country.
owenversteeg 6y ago
Wow, I very strongly disagree. First of all, as for learning the language, I have no idea why taarof would be an impediment. I mean, I guess if your plan is to exchange a handful of words with a ton of different people, taarof might make up a noticeable portion of your communication, but in language learning it's far better to speak with fewer people and try to have longer conversations. Otherwise you'll never move past the basics. I've been to Iran and taarof never even crossed my mind as a possible impediment to learning the language. (Amusingly, I stayed with some Iranians that didn't speak anything I spoke, so I was forced to learn some Farsi, which was a lovely time!) And the Iranian people _are_ very hospitable, taarof aside. When I traveled to Iran I was invited into many homes, and I know the invitations were sincere because I was being accompanied by Iranian acquaintances most of the time, doing the translating. For one particular example of Iranian friendliness, in college an Iranian friend of mine was concerned that I wasn't eating healthily enough, so every time he saw me after that (most days of the week) he made me sandwiches. Furthermore, taarof is part of the Iranian culture. These little cultural differences are what makes this world beautiful, and not some mass of efficiently-communicating Soylent-drinking robots.
- eganist 6y ago
  > I know the invitations were sincere because I was being accompanied by Iranian acquaintances most of the time, doing the translating. 100% taarof - there was another Persian with you, and the custom therefore could absolutely not be disregarded with the solo foreigner. Even if you were alone, the mere potential that you might understand the custom compels its use by your hosts. > For one particular example of Iranian friendliness, in college an Iranian friend of mine was concerned that I wasn't eating healthily enough, so every time he saw me after that (most days of the week) he made me sandwiches. Also very likely taarof. Even my mother does this in spite of my persistent requests for her not to (specifically when I invoke my unhealthy relationship with food in order for her to stop) because she feels an obligation to do so in spite of my pleas. It's a custom she can't shake. I'm speaking from direct, immersive experience when I say that the complexities of taarof are very likely to be misinterpreted by those not truly and thoroughly immersed. And it is absolutely one of our culture's worst traditions. It absolutely must go.
eganist 6y ago
I could not agree with this more. Speaking as a Persian and one who's been immersed in Persian culture as well as American culture specifically in the mid-Atlantic and New York, I've come to recognize just how cursed a cultural relic taarof truly is. It's one of the biggest impediments both to assimilating in Persian culture (in any of the boroughs across the world where Persians have emigrated, not just Iran) and also to learning the language itself (where working out the intent of the speaker is impaired by perversely invasive concept of niceness that overrules honesty and directness). Tajikistan and Afghanistan do not have nearly this level of indirection (misdirection?) integrated into their cultures, and yet they both speak variants of the same beautiful language (Tajik/Dari). I'd strongly support either, and Tajikistan has the support of the DoD, so that's naturally a better answer for Americans with interest.
castaweh 6y ago
Having visited Iran by myself and having had the pleasure of being invited to join strangers in several cities to meet their friends and join them for meals at their homes, I found this a bit depressing to read. Would Iranians expect foreigners to understand and play along? Surely not. I definitely didn't perceive that the invitations were anything but sincere at the time, but now I'll never know for sure.
- arkitaip 6y ago
  They were most likely very sincere because Iranians don't expect foreigners to understand the suble nuance of their culture. Don't let random noise on HN negatively color your memories of good times.
- mehrdadn 6y ago
  > Having visited Iran by myself and having had the pleasure of being invited to join strangers in several cities to meet their friends and join them for meals at their homes, I found this a bit depressing to read. Oh man, I found your comment depressing to read (though I'm glad you wrote it). It's so frustrating to see one comment like that do so much damage. Ignore the comment you replied to. For anyone traveling in Iran: with one semi-exception (the case where you have a local translator; see below [1]), if they're are inviting you over, they're really, truly, genuinely happy to have you as a guest. Not only is hospitality just ingrained in the culture (even after taking this stuff into account), but as a foreigner, nobody will think negatively of you in any way for accepting their offer (and this applies even in the case of that caveat [1]). They'll be very delighted for you to say yes. It's really that simple. The people who need to worry about this already know who they are. (e.g., local relatives/acquaintances who already live in the same community and know they're playing in the same game.) If you have to ask if it applies to you, it doesn't apply to you. End of story. For more mundane offers about things other than being a guest, you may have to rely more on your common sense and not take initial things at face value, but it's not that complicated, and it'll still be hard to offend people if you miss here unless you're completely clueless. Say, if you go by something and try to pay and they tell you "oh don't worry about it, you're welcome", either they really mean it, or they don't and you should pay anyway (like you would anywhere else on the planet). Though even if you take it literally and walk without paying, they'll figure it was their mistake and not yours. Unless you were buying something ridiculously expensive like a car/jewelry/etc... [1] The one semi-caveat to this I can think of is if you have a local translator with you. In that case, yes, chances are the offer might not be intended to be taken literally, and they might play the game expecting the translator to play along or convey (or have conveyed) things to you in an intelligible manner. And if the translator fails, they might get a bit turned off by the translator. But in that case, it'd be concerning the translator, not you. And honestly even in that case if the translator has any common sense they will pick up any relevant cues later and relay them to you at some point. (Say, if they invite you over for lunch and then ask you to stay for dinner, the translator will very quickly realize if the dinner offer is sincere or not, and let you know.)

rvense 6y ago

Tajikistan is a very different vibe to Iran, though. There's not much cosmopolitan about Dushambe. Also, if you learn to speak like a Tajik, Iranians will probably think you're dim, or at least sound like it. But yeah, I remember eating out alone in one of my first nights in Iran, so already marked as a weirdo, of course, and the waiter says "Qabel nadare!" when I ask for the bill, and I'm very confused, and I get out my dictionary because I don't know the word, and he just starts repeating the phrase louder and louder at me like they joke about the English doing when someone doesn't speak English... it just wasn't a good time for anyone. I did pay, though.

eganist 6y ago
> Iranians will probably think you're dim, or at least sound like it. But we won't tell it to your face. We'll be quite nice to you up front (taarof) and then will backbite like nobody's business. If you want to learn Farsi (or Tajik), please, go to Tajikistan. For your own good, learn it there instead. Or Kabul, for that matter.
- rvense 6y ago
  Actually, after my month of language lessons in Dushambe I came back to university, and we were a group who had a meeting with the Iranian ambassador here. There was a round of introductions and I said that I had just spent a month in Tajikistan, and the ambassador looked at me and said that it sounded like I had started speaking like those people and I should stop it. In a friendly, "for your own good" sort of tone.
  - eganist 6y ago
    > There was a round of introductions and I said that I had just spent a month in Tajikistan, and the ambassador looked at me and said that it sounded like I had started speaking like those people and I should stop it. In a friendly, "for your own good" sort of tone. And now you've run into another one of our culture's more disgusting trends - bigotry. I'm sorry you had to experience it, and I'm sorry for our people consistently dumping on Tajik and Afghan peoples. I'm embarrassed you had to witness that kind of casual bigotry; there's nothing invalid about any group of people for any reason, including dialect. Second and third generation westernized Persians will do a much better job of accepting you for your effort at learning the language without taking pot shots at how you learned it or from whom you learned it. --- -2 points, yikes. Never change, HN.
    - rvense 6y ago
      I actually thought it was hilarious. Once in a blue moon I get to speak a few sentences of Persian, and I try to overemphasize the Tajik traits, just because. The young Afghan guy I met in Shiraz who was honest with me but told everyone else he was from Mashhad and constantly lived in fear of being found out and fired and dumped by all his friends, that was a lot less funny.
Mediterraneo10 6y ago
> Tajikistan is a very different vibe to Iran, though. There's not much cosmopolitan about Dushambe. I actually like Khujand more, it is definitely more multiethnic than Dushanbe. > Also, if you learn to speak like a Tajik, Iranians will probably think you're dim, or at least sound like it. It depends on what you are learning Persian for. Quite a lot of Westerners who have studied Persian have done it out of Middle Eastern/Central Asian areal studies needs, or because they wanted to learn to read the wealth of Persian literature. In those cases, going to a Persian-speaking country can be helpful because direct immersion can boost one’s vocabulary learning, but in the long term one doesn't intend to actively speak the language so much, and so it doesn't matter much if one initially learns a variety of Persian that some Iranians find distasteful. Note that even if one learns Persian within Iran, inevitably one would be picking up regionalisms that people from other parts of Iran nitpick – Iranians can be such snobs about dialects and accents from within their own country.

owenversteeg 6y ago

Wow, I very strongly disagree. First of all, as for learning the language, I have no idea why taarof would be an impediment. I mean, I guess if your plan is to exchange a handful of words with a ton of different people, taarof might make up a noticeable portion of your communication, but in language learning it's far better to speak with fewer people and try to have longer conversations. Otherwise you'll never move past the basics. I've been to Iran and taarof never even crossed my mind as a possible impediment to learning the language. (Amusingly, I stayed with some Iranians that didn't speak anything I spoke, so I was forced to learn some Farsi, which was a lovely time!) And the Iranian people _are_ very hospitable, taarof aside. When I traveled to Iran I was invited into many homes, and I know the invitations were sincere because I was being accompanied by Iranian acquaintances most of the time, doing the translating. For one particular example of Iranian friendliness, in college an Iranian friend of mine was concerned that I wasn't eating healthily enough, so every time he saw me after that (most days of the week) he made me sandwiches. Furthermore, taarof is part of the Iranian culture. These little cultural differences are what makes this world beautiful, and not some mass of efficiently-communicating Soylent-drinking robots.

eganist 6y ago
> I know the invitations were sincere because I was being accompanied by Iranian acquaintances most of the time, doing the translating. 100% taarof - there was another Persian with you, and the custom therefore could absolutely not be disregarded with the solo foreigner. Even if you were alone, the mere potential that you might understand the custom compels its use by your hosts. > For one particular example of Iranian friendliness, in college an Iranian friend of mine was concerned that I wasn't eating healthily enough, so every time he saw me after that (most days of the week) he made me sandwiches. Also very likely taarof. Even my mother does this in spite of my persistent requests for her not to (specifically when I invoke my unhealthy relationship with food in order for her to stop) because she feels an obligation to do so in spite of my pleas. It's a custom she can't shake. I'm speaking from direct, immersive experience when I say that the complexities of taarof are very likely to be misinterpreted by those not truly and thoroughly immersed. And it is absolutely one of our culture's worst traditions. It absolutely must go.

eganist 6y ago

I could not agree with this more. Speaking as a Persian and one who's been immersed in Persian culture as well as American culture specifically in the mid-Atlantic and New York, I've come to recognize just how cursed a cultural relic taarof truly is. It's one of the biggest impediments both to assimilating in Persian culture (in any of the boroughs across the world where Persians have emigrated, not just Iran) and also to learning the language itself (where working out the intent of the speaker is impaired by perversely invasive concept of niceness that overrules honesty and directness). Tajikistan and Afghanistan do not have nearly this level of indirection (misdirection?) integrated into their cultures, and yet they both speak variants of the same beautiful language (Tajik/Dari). I'd strongly support either, and Tajikistan has the support of the DoD, so that's naturally a better answer for Americans with interest.

castaweh 6y ago

Having visited Iran by myself and having had the pleasure of being invited to join strangers in several cities to meet their friends and join them for meals at their homes, I found this a bit depressing to read. Would Iranians expect foreigners to understand and play along? Surely not. I definitely didn't perceive that the invitations were anything but sincere at the time, but now I'll never know for sure.

arkitaip 6y ago
They were most likely very sincere because Iranians don't expect foreigners to understand the suble nuance of their culture. Don't let random noise on HN negatively color your memories of good times.
mehrdadn 6y ago
> Having visited Iran by myself and having had the pleasure of being invited to join strangers in several cities to meet their friends and join them for meals at their homes, I found this a bit depressing to read. Oh man, I found your comment depressing to read (though I'm glad you wrote it). It's so frustrating to see one comment like that do so much damage. Ignore the comment you replied to. For anyone traveling in Iran: with one semi-exception (the case where you have a local translator; see below [1]), if they're are inviting you over, they're really, truly, genuinely happy to have you as a guest. Not only is hospitality just ingrained in the culture (even after taking this stuff into account), but as a foreigner, nobody will think negatively of you in any way for accepting their offer (and this applies even in the case of that caveat [1]). They'll be very delighted for you to say yes. It's really that simple. The people who need to worry about this already know who they are. (e.g., local relatives/acquaintances who already live in the same community and know they're playing in the same game.) If you have to ask if it applies to you, it doesn't apply to you. End of story. For more mundane offers about things other than being a guest, you may have to rely more on your common sense and not take initial things at face value, but it's not that complicated, and it'll still be hard to offend people if you miss here unless you're completely clueless. Say, if you go by something and try to pay and they tell you "oh don't worry about it, you're welcome", either they really mean it, or they don't and you should pay anyway (like you would anywhere else on the planet). Though even if you take it literally and walk without paying, they'll figure it was their mistake and not yours. Unless you were buying something ridiculously expensive like a car/jewelry/etc... [1] The one semi-caveat to this I can think of is if you have a local translator with you. In that case, yes, chances are the offer might not be intended to be taken literally, and they might play the game expecting the translator to play along or convey (or have conveyed) things to you in an intelligible manner. And if the translator fails, they might get a bit turned off by the translator. But in that case, it'd be concerning the translator, not you. And honestly even in that case if the translator has any common sense they will pick up any relevant cues later and relay them to you at some point. (Say, if they invite you over for lunch and then ask you to stay for dinner, the translator will very quickly realize if the dinner offer is sincere or not, and let you know.)