Portuguese (Portugal) · Pronunciation Guide

How do you pronounce "calças" in Portuguese (Portugal)?

Q: How do you pronounce calças in Portuguese (Portugal)?

calças is pronounced with the stress described below. In IPA it is written /ˈkalsɐʃ/. It means “pants, trousers.” Say "KAL-suhsh" — stress on the first syllable, and that final "-as" ending sounds like "ush", not "as".

Say "KAL-suhsh" — stress on the first syllable, and that final "-as" ending sounds like "ush", not "as".

calças /ˈkalsɐʃ/

Stress is on the first syllable "cal"; the trickiest part is purely the final "s", which is pronounced "sh" in European Portuguese, not the "s" or "z" sound English speakers expect.

Listen: calças

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Sound it out

cal Like English "cal" in "calculate" — a clear open "a", carrying the main stress.

ç Always a plain "s" sound, as in "see" — the cedilla just tells you not to pronounce it as "k".

as The unstressed "a" reduces to "uh", and the word-final "s" is pronounced "sh" as in "shoe" — a hallmark of Lisbon Portuguese.

Hear it in a sentence

As calças estão sujas.

The pants are dirty.

Listen: As calças estão sujas.

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"As calças estão sujas" ("The pants are dirty") shows that "calças" is grammatically plural even when referring to a single pair, just like English "pants" or "trousers" — so it always takes plural articles and verb agreement ("estão", not "está"). "Sujas" agrees in gender and number with the feminine plural noun.

Where English speakers slip

The word-final "s" is the giveaway: English speakers want to say "KAL-sas" with a clear "s" or "z", but Lisbon speakers turn that trailing "s" into "sh", giving something closer to "KAL-suhsh". Brazilian speakers usually keep a plain "s" there, so leaning on a Brazilian audio source will teach you the wrong ending for European Portuguese.