What it does
Mahpach is a conjunctive trope, almost always the lead-in to Pashta. Where Munach serves many different disjunctives, Mahpach is specialized: when you see Mahpach, Pashta is coming on the next word or the one after.
Where it appears
Common. The pair Mahpach-Pashta is one of the foundational sequences of Torah reading and appears many times per chapter.
How to remember it
Mahpach means "inverted" or "turned over." The mark looks like an angled bracket below the letter, almost like a less-than sign rotated. Some teachers describe it as Pashta's mirror image, sitting below instead of above.
Example from the Torah
Common phrase
In the common opening "And Hashem spoke to Moshe saying," Mahpach on וַיְדַבֵּ֤ר sets up the Pashta on יְהוָה֙. This bookend opens countless verses in the Torah.
Hear the melody
A synthesized rendering of the melodic shape, not a vocal recording. For a baal koreh's voice on a full aliyah, PocketTorah is a great free resource.
Hand signal (simanim)
Often confused with
Both are conjunctives below the letter. Mahpach is an angled bracket; Munach is a flat horizontal line.