Farsi · Pronunciation Guide

How do you pronounce "لطفاً" in Farsi?

Q: How do you pronounce لطفاً in Farsi?

لطفاً is pronounced with the stress described below. In IPA it is written [lot.ˈfæn]. It means “please.” lot-FAHN — well, more precisely lot-FAN with a short 'a' as in 'cat', not the long 'ah' the spelling might suggest.

lot-FAHN — well, more precisely lot-FAN with a short 'a' as in 'cat', not the long 'ah' the spelling might suggest.

لطفاً [lot.ˈfæn]

lotfan

Stress lands on the final syllable, fan, which carries the Arabic tanwin ending (the little hook mark) pronounced as '-an'.

Listen: لطفاً

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Sound it out

ل A clear 'l', as in English 'love'.

ط Pronounced simply as a regular 't' (as in 'top') in Persian — the emphatic, throat-tightened quality this letter has in Arabic is not kept.

فاً 'f' plus the vowel sound 'an' (the tanwin mark ً is read as 'an') — this stressed final syllable rhymes with English 'fan'.

Hear it in a sentence

لطفاً کمک کنید.

Lotfan komak konid.

Please help.

Listen: لطفاً کمک کنید.

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'لطفاً کمک کنید' pairs the adverb لطفاً with the light-verb construction کمک کردن ('to help', literally 'to do help'); کنید is the formal/plural imperative of کردن ('to do'), so this whole sentence is a polite command form appropriate for a stranger or elder.

Where English speakers slip

The most common mistake is pronouncing the tanwin ending as a plain '-a' (giving 'lotfa') instead of the full nasal '-an', and giving ط an emphatic, pharyngealized quality borrowed from Arabic — in Persian it's just a plain 't'.