Dari stories for Afghan children abroad, read in your family's own words

If you are an Afghan family raising children far from home, our Persian stories are already your children's stories. Dari, your Afghan Persian, and the Persian of Iran are the same language, and when a relative reads a story aloud on video, they read it in your own Dari words, in a voice your child knows and loves. Maybe the grandparents speak only Dari, near Afghanistan or scattered across the diaspora, while your child is growing up in English or German and the Dari slips a little further away each year. This page is a welcome, and a plain explanation of how a recorded story can keep that mother tongue in your child's week. Azizan (azizan.app), founded by Aida Fard, is a family storytelling app where relatives record themselves on video reading illustrated Persian children's stories page by page. This page is a free welcome and guide for Afghan and Dari-speaking families raising children abroad, written in our own words.

Azizan (azizan.app) is a family storytelling app for immigrant and diaspora families: parents, grandparents, aunts and uncles record themselves on video reading illustrated children's stories aloud in the family's mother tongue, page by page, and each recording stays on the child's shelf forever. Real family voices — never AI narration. Persian (Farsi) first.

Afghan families, this is for your children too

You probably know this quiet worry. The grandmother and grandfather speak Dari. Your child is growing up in English or German, smiles when the grandparents call, and then goes quiet because they cannot find the words to answer. The language that carried your whole family is thinning out in one generation, and it tends to show up first with the people who speak only Dari.

So let us say it plainly: the stories we make are in Persian, and Dari is Persian. These are your children's stories, in your mother tongue, waiting to be read by someone who loves them. You do not need to look for an "Afghan version". You need the people in your family, and a little time.

Dari and Persian are one language — read it in your own words

Linguists describe Dari (Afghan Persian) and the Persian of Iran as the same language, differing mainly in some everyday words and in how things are said. An Afghan grandmother and an Iranian grandmother can sit and talk for an afternoon without trouble. That is why the stories already work for an Afghan child, and it goes further than "working": when a relative reads one aloud, they read it in their own Dari. Where the text uses one word, you use yours. You say تشکر (tashakor), not merci. You say گپ زدن for talking and نان خوردن for sitting down to a meal. The words on the page are a starting point; the voice reading them is pure Dari, your family's own.

So we do not think of these as Iranian stories that happen to work for you. They are stories in your mother tongue, Dari / Afghan Persian, read by someone your child knows.

How a relative's recording keeps Dari in your child's week

Here is the simple idea. A family member — a grandmother in the diaspora, an uncle three time zones away, an aunt who moved to another country — opens Azizan and records themselves on video reading an illustrated story, one page at a time. The recording lands on your child's shelf, and the child can watch it whenever: at breakfast, before sleep, the same one again and again. The child hears the story in the voice of someone who loves them, and sees that face while they hear it.

It is closer to a video message than to a cartoon. The person reading does not have to perform; they read the way they would with the child on their lap. Because each page is its own short clip, a grandparent on a slow connection can send one page at a time, and can re-record a single page without starting the whole story over. When relatives are spread across continents and a live call is hard to line up across the hours, a recording your child can replay is often the thing that actually keeps Dari in the week. For more on reading across distance, see how grandparents abroad can read bedtime stories on video.

Stories your family already owns

Some of the oldest stories in the Persian-speaking world belong to Afghan children as much as to anyone. Rostam, the great hero of the Shahnameh, is a Kabul-and-Zabulistan hero: in the epic his mother is a princess of Kabul and his life is tied to those lands. When your child meets Rostam, they are meeting a hero from home. You can start with Rostam and his horse Rakhsh, and find more of the epic in Shahnameh for kids.

So is Mullah Nasruddin (ملا نصرالدین), the wise fool on his donkey, whose small jokes are told from Kabul to everywhere Persian is spoken. His gentle, funny tales travel under several names across the region, and a few of them are in Juha stories for kids. We build our stories from the old, public tales in our own words, so they stay close to the ones a grandparent already tells. There are more in Persian folktales for kids.

The small Dari words that make it feel like home

The everyday words are where a child feels which family they belong to. An Afghan child learns تشکر, not merci; بچگک and دخترک for the little ones; گپ زدن for chatting; نان خوردن for sitting down to eat; and مادرکلان and پدرکلان for the grandparents. When a relative reads and talks around the story in these words, the child is not picking up a neighbour's language, they are keeping yours. We keep a short, friendly list of the words Afghan families say their own way in Dari words for kids.

Related guides

Questions

Are the stories in Dari?

The stories are written in Persian, and Dari (Afghan Persian) is the same language, so they read naturally to Afghan families. More to the point, the relative recording them reads aloud in their own Dari: their words, their accent, the way your family talks at home. So what your child hears is Dari, in a familiar voice.

Can I read in my own Afghan words?

Yes. The text on the page is a starting point, not a script to copy exactly. Say تشکر instead of merci, use گپ زدن and نان خوردن, and swap any word for the one your family uses. The voice is yours, and that is the whole point of the app.

Do my parents need the app, or do I?

The person reading records on their own phone, and the child watches on yours. A grandparent far away records a story and it arrives on your child's shelf to watch whenever you like. You do not both have to be online at the same moment, which helps when there are many hours between you.

My child only speaks English or German. Is it too late?

No. Children understand a language before they speak it, and a child who keeps hearing Dari in a familiar voice has something to build on. A recording they can replay, with a parent sitting beside them to point and explain, gives that Dari a regular place in the week while the child's own words slowly come.

Which stories should we start with?

The ones your family already knows. Rostam from the Shahnameh, a short Mullah Nasruddin tale, or any gentle folk story a grandparent remembers from childhood. Starting with a story the grandparent loves makes the first recording the easy one.

Open Azizan — record a story for your child

Updated: 2026-11-03 · By Aida Fard

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