Testimonial by Piotr Szustakiewicz

MA student, University of Warsaw, Poland

2 weeks 2023 Learn Persian Through the Shahname

The course ”Learn Persian Through the Shahname” in which I took part in September 2020 was a wonderful experience.

Due to global pandemic classes were held online, but because of a very well prepared syllabus with key words, articles and links to each lesson it wasn’t a problem at all.

Our main teacher Mr. Ruben Nikoghosyan was absolutely amazing. His patience, precision in teaching, knowledge about Shahname and also passion about it, made this course truly unforgettable experience. It was a pleasure to listen to Mr. Ruben, discuss different topics as well as to learn from him. Moreover his knowledge of Old Persian and Middle Persian helped with explaining and memorising more difficult parts od Shahname. I would love to learn with him once again.

As a person without much experience with Classical Persian thanks to the ASPIRANTUM course I was able to understand better the differences between it and Modern Persian, learned a lot of vocabulary and found a deeper understanding of this famous work. I would recommend it for everyone who wants to start his journey with Shaname or Classical Persian. However due to vast knowledge of Mr. Ruben it would be perfectly adequate also for more advanced students.

Interested? Check Upcoming Persian Language Courses!


Our Persian language courses are open to anyone with upper elementary or intermediate knowledge of the Persian language. The lectures are organized with the academic interests of our participants in mind. Students as well as researchers working in Iranian Studies and relevant fields will benefit the most from our courses.

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Other Testimonials.

Asael Benyami

MA student, The Hebrew University of Jerusalem, Israel

“As a long time and advanced learner of Persian, I was highly impressed by the quality of the instruction and gained myself much from it.”

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Dafna Messing

MA student, Interdisciplinary Center Herzliya, Israel

“I appreciate this experience, and highly recommend it to anyone who would like to utilize his Persian skills by learning from the best while having a great time. Looking forward to attending next year’s Summer school in Yerevan in person.”

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Moran Fararo

MA student, Mandel School for Advanced Studies, Hebrew University of Jerusalem, Israel

“I participated in the three weeks program of the Persian summer school, and I can say truly that I had a great experience - educational and social. In the weekends we had trips outside of Yerevan to different places in Armenia, and this was really great, also after classes we had sometime different activities like going to museum or a tour in a Brandi factory.”

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