Farsi · Pronunciation Guide

How do you pronounce "موسیقی" in Farsi?

Q: How do you pronounce موسیقی in Farsi?

موسیقی is pronounced with the stress described below. In IPA it is written [mosiˈɣiː]. It means “music.” Say 'moo-see-GHEE' — three syllables with the stress on the last, and a soft, throat-back 'gh' (like a gargled French 'r') in place of the 'q'.

Say 'moo-see-GHEE' — three syllables with the stress on the last, and a soft, throat-back 'gh' (like a gargled French 'r') in place of the 'q'.

موسیقی [mosiˈɣiː]

musighi

Stress falls on the final syllable -ghi; the borrowed Arabic spelling with ق doesn't change how ordinary the stress pattern is.

Listen: موسیقی

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Sound it out

مو Pronounced 'mu' — an English 'm' plus a long 'oo' as in 'moon'.

سی Pronounced 'si' — an English 's' plus a long 'ee' as in 'see'.

قی Pronounced 'ghi' — the ق here is the same soft, back-of-the-throat 'gh' sound as غ (a bit like gargling), followed by a long 'ee'.

Hear it in a sentence

موسیقی ایرانی گوش می‌دهم.

Musighi-ye Irāni gush midaham.

I listen to Persian music.

Listen: موسیقی ایرانی گوش می‌دهم.

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Musighi-ye Irāni gush midaham. — 'I listen to Persian music.' The -ye suffix on musighi is another ezāfe link, joining it to Irāni ('Iranian') to mean 'Iranian/Persian music'; the verb gush midaham literally means 'I give ear', the standard idiom for 'I listen'.

Where English speakers slip

English speakers usually pronounce the ق as a hard 'k' or 'q' the way it looks in the Latin transliteration. In Tehrani Persian, ق merges with غ into one soft, uvular 'gh' sound — closer to a French r than to English 'k'.