Farsi · Pronunciation Guide

How do you pronounce "خطرناک" in Farsi?

Q: How do you pronounce خطرناک in Farsi?

خطرناک is pronounced with the stress described below. In IPA it is written /xætærnɒːk/. It means “dangerous.” Say "kha-tar-NAHK", where "kha" starts with a raspy throat sound like the ch in Scottish "loch", and the stress lands on the final, long-vowel syllable.

Say "kha-tar-NAHK", where "kha" starts with a raspy throat sound like the ch in Scottish "loch", and the stress lands on the final, long-vowel syllable.

خطرناک /xætærnɒːk/

khatarnāk

Stress is on the final syllable, -NĀK, which carries the long ā vowel; the two earlier syllables are short and unstressed by comparison.

Listen: خطرناک

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Sound it out

خطر Starts with the raspy "kh" sound of Scottish "loch" (not a plain English "k"), followed by short vowels giving roughly "kha-tar" — this root alone means "danger".

نا "n" as in "no" plus a long "ā" like the "a" in "father" — this is the stressed syllable.

ک A crisp final "k" as in "lock", closing the word — this -nāk ending is a productive suffix meaning roughly "-ous" or "full of", as in tarsnāk ("scary").

Hear it in a sentence

این جاده خطرناک است.

In jādde khatarnāk ast.

This road is dangerous.

Listen: این جاده خطرناک است.

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"In jādde khatarnāk ast" (This road is dangerous) reuses jādde ("road") from an earlier entry (pahn, "wide"), and khatar ("danger") plus the suffix -nāk builds the adjective the way English builds "danger" into "dangerous" — recognizing -nāk as a suffix helps with related words like dardnāk ("painful").

Where English speakers slip

The initial خ is the single most common pronunciation slip for English speakers: they substitute a plain "k" (saying "katarnak") instead of the raspy, back-of-the-throat friction of the Scottish "loch" ch-sound; getting that first consonant right is worth deliberate practice since it appears in many common Persian words.