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Farsi · Pronunciation Guide
How do you pronounce "ماهی" in Farsi?
Say 'MAH-hee' — a long open 'ah' followed by a short, unstressed 'hee'.
māhi
Unusually for a two-syllable Persian noun, stress here tends to fall on the first syllable, mā-, since māhi behaves like a simple noun rather than following the more common final-stress pattern; some speakers stress the final syllable instead, so either is acceptable.
Listen: ماهی
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Sound it out
Hear it in a sentence
در این دریاچه ماهی زیاد است.
Dar in daryāche māhi ziād ast.
There are many fish in this lake.
Listen: در این دریاچه ماهی زیاد است.
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Dar in daryāche māhi ziād ast. — 'There are many fish in this lake.' Ziād ('many/much') here functions as a predicate adjective after the noun, so the sentence literally reads 'in this lake, fish is much' — Persian doesn't need a separate word for 'there are' the way English does. Note that māhi stays singular in form even though the meaning is plural, since Persian generic statements often leave count nouns unmarked.
Where English speakers slip
Learners often shorten the first vowel, saying 'MAH-hee' too quickly or reducing it to 'ma-HEE'. Hold the long 'ā' clearly at the start — it's what distinguishes māhi ('fish') from other similar-sounding short words.