Unfortunately, you don’t yet have a Universal Translator, and most likely, you don’t have 200 years to wait for one. You do, however, have various translation tools available to you, but… effort… urgh! You’ve learned English, and you’ve probably also worked hard for an IELTS 7.5 result, but do Tehran baristas share your ambition of being a polyglot, global citizen? We’ll it kinda turns out that they do. Well, at least the one that we spoke with seemed to. We also called up many other places you might need to interact with as a visitor to Tehran, curious to answer the question, “how much English can Iranians e’speak?”. The results were reassuring, if not entertaining. So, if you plan to visit Tehran, or are simply curious as to how Iranians responded to our rediculous questions, be sure to listen to this episode.

Questions we also get answers to in this episode

  • Should I stand on a non-Iranian toilet while using it?
  • Does Rosha Department Store, have a customer helipad?
  • Where is a good place to go to rent an apartment in Tehran, as an expat?
  • Is the Iran Mall one of the largest malls in the Middle East?
  • How can I get a charter flight in Iran?
  • Can you smoke while eating vegan food in a Tehran cafe?
  • Does Iranians e’speak the Inglish?

Which places can speak English with me in Tehran

If you’re a tourist or expat in Tehran, then you might be curious to know how much English Iranians can speak. To help here, we made a list of places that tourists and expats might want to contact, and then called each one to see if they could speak English. Of the places that we called, the list below shows which ones were able to speak with us in English.

Translations of Persian (Farsi) words used during the show

PersianEnglish translation
Khareji:“Foreign”
Chemidoonam:“What do I know?!” – said back-to-back as an exclamation
Mozaahem:“To bother”
“a” appearing alone, is pronounced as a short-a — double ‘aa’s are long, as used in the word “water”

Image credit: Man carries man, edited by Ask An Iranian