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Portuguese (Portugal) · Pronunciation Guide
How do you pronounce "escola" in Portuguese (Portugal)?
Say "shKAW-luh", almost swallowing the first syllable into a quick "sh" before the stressed "kaw".
Stress falls on the second syllable "co"; the initial unstressed "es" reduces so much that it comes out mostly as "sh" before the following consonant.
Listen: escola
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Sound it out
Hear it in a sentence
As crianças vão à escola de manhã.
The children go to school in the morning.
Listen: As crianças vão à escola de manhã.
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"As crianças vão à escola de manhã" uses the irregular verb "ir" ("vão", they go) and the contraction "à" (a + a, to the), required here because "escola" is feminine and takes the feminine article after the preposition "a". "De manhã" is a fixed time expression meaning "in the morning". Plural agreement runs throughout: "as crianças... vão", article, noun, and verb all matching plural.
Where English speakers slip
As with "esposa", English speakers tend to give the initial "es-" its full vowel sound, saying "ess-KOH-lah", when European Portuguese compresses it to almost nothing, closer to "shKAW-luh". This initial-vowel reduction plus s-to-sh shift before a consonant is one of the most reliable audible markers separating European from Brazilian Portuguese, where the vowel stays clearer and more open.