Portuguese (Portugal) · Pronunciation Guide

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

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

chegar is pronounced with the stress described below. In IPA it is written [ʃɨˈɡaɾ]. It means “to arrive.” Say "shuh-GAR" — the che- is barely more than a hissed 'sh', with stress landing on the final -gar.

Say "shuh-GAR" — the che- is barely more than a hissed 'sh', with stress landing on the final -gar.

chegar [ʃɨˈɡaɾ]

Stress falls on the last syllable -gar; the initial che- is unstressed and its e reduces almost to nothing, leaving mostly the ch sound.

Listen: chegar

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Sound it out

che- Ch is always a soft 'sh' sound in Portuguese, never 'ch' as in English "chair". The following e reduces so much it's barely audible, giving something close to just "sh" plus a hint of a vowel.

-gar Stressed: a hard g (as in "go"), an open 'ah', and a soft final r, not the harsh r of English.

Hear it in a sentence

O comboio chega às dez.

The train arrives at ten.

Listen: O comboio chega às dez.

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"O comboio chega às dez" ("The train arrives at ten") uses chega, the third-person present of chegar, agreeing with comboio ("train") as the subject. Às is a contraction of a + as, meaning "at the" before a feminine plural time expression — here used with dez ("ten [o'clock]"), a very common way to state arrival or departure times.

Where English speakers slip

The recurring mistake is pronouncing ch as an English 'ch' (as in "cheese"), saying something like "CHEH-gar", when Portuguese ch is always the soft 'sh' sound of "shoe" — this holds in both European and Brazilian Portuguese, so it's a spelling trap rather than a regional-accent issue.