Farsi · Pronunciation Guide

How do you pronounce "و" in Farsi?

Say "va," rhyming with English "bat" but starting with a "v" — in fast, casual speech Iranians often shorten this to just "o."

و /væ/

va

Single syllable; it's usually unstressed in a sentence since it's just a light connector between words.

Listen: و

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Sound it out

و Here this letter is read as the connector word "va" ("and"), pronounced with a "v" sound plus a short "a" like in "cat" — not as the "oo"/"o" vowel it can represent elsewhere.

Hear it in a sentence

نان و پنیر می‌خورم.

Nān va panir mikhoram.

I eat bread and cheese.

Listen: نان و پنیر می‌خورم.

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"Nān va panir mikhoram" (نان و پنیر می‌خورم) links two nouns exactly like English "and." Listen for casual native speech, though — va is very often reduced to a quick "o" ("nān o panir"), especially in Tehran colloquial speech, even though the formal/written form stays va.

Where English speakers slip

The single letter و is one of the most overloaded letters in Persian script — it can be "v," "o," "u," or "va/o" for "and," depending on the word. Learners new to reading often stumble by defaulting to "oo" everywhere, when here, as the standalone conjunction, it's "va" (or colloquial "o"), not a long vowel.