Portuguese (Portugal) · Pronunciation Guide

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

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

estreito is pronounced with the stress described below. In IPA it is written [ɨʃ'tɾɐjtu]. It means “narrow.” Say "shtray-too" almost — the initial e barely registers as a schwa, the s sounds like "sh," and "ei" is a tight diphthong closer to English "eye" said quickly.

Say "shtray-too" almost — the initial e barely registers as a schwa, the s sounds like "sh," and "ei" is a tight diphthong closer to English "eye" said quickly.

estreito [ɨʃ'tɾɐjtu]

Stress falls on TREI; the initial unstressed e reduces almost to nothing (a schwa-like [ɨ]), and s before a consonant becomes "sh," a hallmark of European Portuguese.

Listen: estreito

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Sound it out

es The e nearly disappears into a faint "uh" sound, and the s before the following t becomes "sh" — together it sounds closer to "ish" or even just "sh" than to English "es."

trei A true dental t (not the "ch"/"tch" sound Brazilian Portuguese uses before this kind of vowel), a tapped r, and a diphthong close to the "ay" in English "day" but shorter.

to Dental t again, plus the reduced final "oo" vowel.

Hear it in a sentence

Este caminho é estreito.

This path is narrow.

Listen: Este caminho é estreito.

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"Este caminho é estreito" (This path is narrow) again uses "ser" because narrowness is treated as an inherent property of the path, not a temporary state. Note that "caminho" is masculine, matching "este" and requiring the masculine form of any following adjective, which "estreito" already is by default.

Where English speakers slip

The double challenge here is the swallowed initial e and the s-as-sh. Learners often pronounce a clear "ES-tray-toh," but Lisbon speech compresses the beginning almost to "shtray-too," barely voicing the e and turning the s into a soft "sh" before the t. This is very different from Brazilian Portuguese, which keeps the s closer to a plain "s" sound and pronounces the initial e more fully.