"It is not good for all our wishes to be filled. Through sickness we
recognize the value of health; through evil, the value of good;
through hunger, the value of food." - Greek Proverb

They dug up the 30 Most Important Words in Pashto And here they are. See how many you already know.

Black for the obscure past, red for blood shed for independence,
and green for prosperity from agriculture.

A Pashto lady in colorful costume

Our Pashto teacher has lots of CLASS

Pashto is a member of the southeastern Iranian branch of Indo-Iranian languages spoken in Afghanistan, Pakistan and Iran. There are three main varieties of Pashto: Northern Pashto, spoken mainly in Pakistan; Southern Pashto, spoken mainly in Afghanistan; and Central Pashto, spoken mainly in Pakistan.
The exact number of Pashto speakers is not known for sure, but most estimates range from 45 million to 55 million. Pashto is the first language of between 40% and 55% (11 to 15.4 million) of the people of Afghanistan, and 10% to 28% (2.8 to 7.8 million) speak it as a second language, and the total is around 18 or 19 million..

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I am stirring up some new vocabulary words in Pashto.

Remember this iconic photo of her on the left? This is how she looks today.

Quizzes on Pashto

Test Your Pashto Here
This page contains a quiz in Pashto related to grammar and vocabulary.

Whenever you can in your own environment, ask to observe colleagues in action in their classroom. Pick up ideas that work for them and adopt and adapt them to you own classroom. Always be on the "lookout" for new ideas, new means of teaching, new ways to incorporate things that work for others into your own methodology. Don't hesitate to ask questions of Pashto teachers who have had much success as to how and why that happened. I used to observe elementary teachers and how they interacted with their young students. Always something to learn. "Learn from the mistakes of others. You'll never live long enough to make all of them yourself." Another that I always believed in is - If you think you're green, you'll grow - if you think you're ripe, you'll rot. All true. Don't rot! That's an axiom that will never grow old. You may think that you are the best, but you're not. There is always someone better than you. (I learned this playing basketball) Learn from them. Know what the best practices are and be aware of the current online resources that can be of great help to you and your Pashto language students.

Keep your Pashto classroom presentations FRESH. Keep up with innovation and the changing needs of your students by incorporating technology such as computer use, iPhones, iPads, e-mail and a host of other innovations into your routine classroom activities to communicate with others in the target language and to access authentic resources. Stay current with options and trends in the field such as the National Standards and know how to incorporate them into your daily plans. Hopefully these few ideas will aid in your growth and success. Stay with it. Don't throw in the towel like many have, but again as I point out above, whatever new ideas you discover, you must first adopt and then adapt. Not everything you see elsewhere will work for you as I have personally learned. You must adapt those ideas to your own classroom. There are a host of great ideas available on all these sites, but they are only as successful as you will make them. And perhaps most important of all, do ask your Pashto students often how they feel about what they are doing and learning and what they enjoy the most and the least in your classroom. Most of all, do enjoy your students and share yourself with them. [They don't care how much you know until they know how much you CARE] I hope that you picked up some ideas here that will aid in your total success. Have fun in your classroom. (ps I picked up these ideas in a recent dream and wanted to share with each of you) I'm 78 now, but never too old to learn and never too old to share ideas. Best yet, why not be learning another language yourself? Check out one of the sites above. It is a great means to experience first-hand what your Pashto students are feeling. Now you are "walking in their shoes." Don't forget to have FUN doing it. (See Below)