Learn Farsi: زرافه مانند گل زیبا است. - The giraffe is beautiful like a flower.

It is pronounced mânand-e gol. The word mânand (like) requires an invisible ezâfe—a short "e" sound—to connect it to the noun it is comparing something to.

Could I use mesl-e instead of mânand-e here?

Yes, you can absolutely say zarrâfe mesl-e gol zibâ ast. Both mean "like", but mânand-e sounds slightly more formal or literary, whereas mesl-e is very common in everyday spoken conversation.

Why does the phrase for "like a flower" come before the word for "beautiful"?

In Farsi word order, the comparison phrase (mânand-e gol) usually goes right before the adjective it modifies (zibâ). And as always, the verb ast (is) sits at the very end of the sentence.

There are no words for "the" or "a" in the Farsi sentence. How do we know it means "The giraffe" and "a flower"?

In Farsi, simple singular nouns are often used to make general statements. zarrâfe here refers to giraffes as a species ("the giraffe"), and gol refers to flowers in general ("a flower"). Farsi doesn't need to add articles like "the" or "a" for this kind of general statement.