Farsi · Pronunciation Guide

How do you pronounce "بیمارستان" in Farsi?

Q: How do you pronounce بیمارستان in Farsi?

بیمارستان is pronounced with the stress described below. In IPA it is written /bimɒːɾesˈtɒːn/. It means “hospital.” Say "bee-mah-res-TAHN," four syllables with the stress landing on the final one — it's built from bimār ("sick/patient") plus -estān ("place of"), so it literally means "place for the sick."

Say "bee-mah-res-TAHN," four syllables with the stress landing on the final one — it's built from bimār ("sick/patient") plus -estān ("place of"), so it literally means "place for the sick."

بیمارستان /bimɒːɾesˈtɒːn/

bimārestān

Stress falls on the final syllable -tān; recognizing the two building blocks, bimār + -estān, makes the four syllables far easier to keep straight than memorizing them as one long blur.

Listen: بیمارستان

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Sound it out

بی bi, "b" plus a crisp short "ee," as in "believe."

مار mār, "m" plus the long open "ah" of "father" and a lightly tapped r — this piece relates to "sick/ill."

ستان setān/stān, "s" plus "t" and a long, nasal-tinged "ahn" — this suffix means roughly "place of," the same ending found in country names like Afghanestān.

Hear it in a sentence

او را به بیمارستان بردند.

U rā be bimārestān bordand.

They took him to the hospital.

Listen: او را به بیمارستان بردند.

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"او را به بیمارستان بردند" (U rā be bimārestān bordand) puts او را ("him/her," object-marked) right after the implied subject, then به بیمارستان ("to the hospital") before the verb بردند ("they took") — the plural "they" is unspecified and generic here, similar to an impersonal "they" in English "they took him to the hospital."

Where English speakers slip

This is one of the longest words in the set, and learners often rush through the middle or misplace the stress on an earlier syllable out of habit. Break it into its two logical halves, bimār (sick) and -estān (place), practice each separately, and keep the final stress on -tān.