Try to pronounce the two separate syllables in the word Persian. 'Per' rhymes with stir. The 'er' sound is the same as the 'ir' in bird. In 'sian' the vowels are not pronounced. Have you heard of the International Phonetic Alphabet (IPA)? It is a set of characters which represents all of the sounds used in various languages. This is really useful for English pronunciation because letters can have different sounds in different words. In IPA, we would write Persian as /ˈpɜːʒn/ The word has four sounds p (as in picture) ɜː (the ir sound in bird) ʒ (which sounds similar to a j and is the sound in Asia or treasure or pleasure) and n (as in new). Put those four sounds together and you pronounce Persian. I hope this helps :)