Portuguese (Portugal) · Pronunciation Guide

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

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

dois is pronounced with the stress described below. In IPA it is written [ˈdojʃ]. It means “two.” Sounds like English "doish" — start with a clear "d," glide through "oy" as in "boy," and finish with a soft "sh."

Sounds like English "doish" — start with a clear "d," glide through "oy" as in "boy," and finish with a soft "sh."

dois [ˈdojʃ]

One syllable; the diphthong "oi" glides from "o" toward "i," and the final "s" becomes a "sh" sound because it sits at the end of the word.

Listen: dois

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Sound it out

d A true, crisp English-style "d," made with the tongue tip at the teeth — nothing like the "j"-ish sound Brazilian Portuguese sometimes gives "d."

oi Glides like the "oy" in English "boy," moving from an "o" toward an "ee" sound.

s At the end of a word, EU Portuguese "s" turns into a soft "sh" sound, as in English "fish," not a hissy "s."

Hear it in a sentence

Quero dois cafés.

I want two coffees.

Listen: Quero dois cafés.

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"Quero dois cafés" means "I want two coffees." "Dois" is the masculine form of "two" (the feminine is "duas"), and it agrees with the masculine noun "cafés" it's counting. Note the sentence itself ends in another word-final "s," so both get the "sh" treatment in fluent speech.

Where English speakers slip

The biggest mistake is pronouncing the final "s" as a plain English "s" or "z" sound instead of "sh" — European Portuguese consistently turns syllable-final "s" into [ʃ], while Brazilian Portuguese (outside Rio) usually keeps it as a plain "s." Learners who picked up pronunciation from Brazilian media often need to consciously retrain this word to end in "-oish" rather than "-oyss."