Farsi · Pronunciation Guide

How do you pronounce "اسب" in Farsi?

Q: How do you pronounce اسب in Farsi?

اسب is pronounced with the stress described below. In IPA it is written [æsb]. It means “horse.” Say 'asb' as one syllable, like English 'as' with a 'b' tacked directly onto the end — no vowel between the s and the b.

Say 'asb' as one syllable, like English 'as' with a 'b' tacked directly onto the end — no vowel between the s and the b.

اسب [æsb]

asb

A one-syllable word with a tricky final consonant cluster; there's no stress choice, but the s and b must be run together without any vowel breaking them up.

Listen: اسب

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Sound it out

ا Pronounced 'a' — a short front vowel like the 'a' in 'cat', here written with the bare alef at the start of the word.

سب Pronounced 'sb' — an English 's' flowing directly into a 'b', both fully pronounced with no vowel in between, as in the end of English 'husband' said quickly.

Hear it in a sentence

اسب سفیدی داشت.

Asb-e sefidi dāsht.

He had a white horse.

Listen: اسب سفیدی داشت.

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Asb-e sefidi dāsht. — 'He had a white horse.' Asb-e sefidi uses the ezāfe -e to attach sefid ('white') plus the indefinite -i, giving 'a white horse'; dāsht ('he/she had') is the simple past of dāshtan, and Persian omits the subject pronoun 'he' entirely since the verb ending already makes the subject clear.

Where English speakers slip

English speakers almost always insert a vowel between the s and b, saying something like 'as-eb' or 'as-buh'. Persian keeps them as a tight final consonant cluster, asb, with no vowel breaking them apart — in casual speech the b is even often devoiced toward a 'p' sound.