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Portuguese (Portugal) · Pronunciation Guide
How do you pronounce "cavalo" in Portuguese (Portugal)?
Say "kuh-VAH-loo", with the first a reduced to "uh", the stress landing hard on VA, and the final o clipped to "oo".
Stress falls on the second syllable VA; the first and third syllables are unstressed and their vowels reduce noticeably.
Listen: cavalo
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Hear it in a sentence
O cavalo corre muito rápido.
The horse runs very fast.
Listen: O cavalo corre muito rápido.
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"O cavalo corre muito rápido" uses correr (to run) in the third person and places the adverb muito ("very") before the adjective-like adverb rápido ("fast"), a standard intensifier pattern in Portuguese equivalent to English "very fast". Note rápido here functions adverbially even though it looks like an adjective, a common feature of Portuguese where certain adjectives double as adverbs.
Where English speakers slip
English speakers often keep the first a fully pronounced as "cah-VAH-lo", but European Portuguese reduces every unstressed vowel aggressively, so the first syllable should sound like a quick, almost throwaway "kuh" — failing to reduce it is one of the clearest signs of a non-native accent.