Farsi · Pronunciation Guide

How do you pronounce "همه" in Farsi?

Q: How do you pronounce همه in Farsi?

همه is pronounced with the stress described below. In IPA it is written /ˈhæme/. It means “everyone.” Say "HUM-eh," with the emphasis up front and a quick, light second syllable, similar to how you'd say the name "Hamid" cut short.

Say "HUM-eh," with the emphasis up front and a quick, light second syllable, similar to how you'd say the name "Hamid" cut short.

همه /ˈhæme/

hame

This is one of the exceptions to Persian's usual final-syllable stress: همه is stressed on the first syllable, HA-, with the final -e trailing off unstressed, much like the "e" at the end of many everyday Persian nouns.

Listen: همه

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Sound it out

هم "Ham," rhyming with the English word "hum" — this carries the main stress.

ه A quick, unstressed "eh" sound at the end, similar to the final vowel in "sofa" — this trailing ه is a common noun ending in Persian and is always light, never stressed.

Hear it in a sentence

همه خوشحال هستند.

Hame khoshhāl hastand.

Everyone is happy.

Listen: همه خوشحال هستند.

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In همه خوشحال هستند, همه means "everyone/all" and functions as the subject, taking the plural verb هستند ("they are") — even though همه itself doesn't look plural in form, it's treated as a plural, collective subject grammatically. خوشحال means "happy," so the sentence is a simple adjective-plus-"to be" construction, just with the verb placed at the end as usual in Persian.

Where English speakers slip

Because همه ends in the same silent-looking ه that appears in many Persian words, English speakers sometimes try to stress that final syllable or pronounce it as a full "heh" — it should stay short and unstressed, with all the weight up front on "HA-."