How to Pronounce 'حالتان چطور است؟': Farsi Pronunciation Guide

Q: How do you pronounce حالتان چطور است؟ in Farsi?

حالتان چطور است؟ is pronounced with the stress described below. In IPA it is written [ˈhɒː.le.tɒːn tʃe.ˈtor æst]. It means “how are you.” HAH-leh-tahn cheh-TOR ast — the surprising part is that the stress stays up front on 'hāl', not on the '-tān' ending, even though '-tān' feels like the 'important' suffix.

How do you pronounce "حالتان چطور است؟" in Farsi?

HAH-leh-tahn cheh-TOR ast — the surprising part is that the stress stays up front on 'hāl', not on the '-tān' ending, even though '-tān' feels like the 'important' suffix.

حالتان چطور است؟ [ˈhɒː.le.tɒːn tʃe.ˈtor æst]

hāletān chetor ast?

حال is a one-syllable noun that keeps its own stress even after the polite possessive enclitic -etān attaches (enclitics never pull stress onto themselves); چطور then gets its own separate, ordinary final-syllable stress, and است, appearing as a full separate word here, carries its own beat too.

Listen: حالتان چطور است؟

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Sound it out

حال 'h' (ح sounds identical to ه — plain English 'h') plus long 'ā' (like 'a' in 'father') and closing 'l' — this is where the stress of the first word lands: HĀ-letān.

تان The formal/polite 'your' ending, unstressed — roughly 'eh-tahn'.

چطور 'ch' (as in 'chop') plus 'e', then 't' plus a Persian 'o' (as in 'more'), and a tapped 'r' — stressed on its final syllable: che-TOR.

است 'a' (as in 'cat') plus 's' plus 't' — the formal word for 'is', pronounced as its own short, stressed beat at the end.

Hear it in a sentence

سلام، حالتان چطور است؟

Salām, hāletān chetor ast?

Hello, how are you?

Listen: سلام، حالتان چطور است؟

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This phrase uses the formal possessive suffix -etān on حال ('condition') rather than a separate pronoun, so 'how are you' is literally 'your(formal) condition, how is [it]?' — this whole construction signals a polite register appropriate for someone you don't know well or an elder.

Where English speakers slip

Learners frequently stress '-tān' since it looks like the meaningful new information ('your'), but Persian enclitics are always unstressed — the emphasis needs to stay on حال itself.