Portuguese (Portugal) · Pronunciation Guide

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

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

férias is pronounced with the stress described below. In IPA it is written [ˈfɛɾjɐʃ]. It means “vacation, holiday.” Say "FEH-ryush" — stress hits the first syllable hard, and the final -s buzzes into a "sh" sound.

Say "FEH-ryush" — stress hits the first syllable hard, and the final -s buzzes into a "sh" sound.

férias [ˈfɛɾjɐʃ]

Stress falls on the first syllable; the accent mark on é confirms this and also signals an open e sound, while the word-final s is pronounced [ʃ], like "sh."

Listen: férias

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Sound it out

fé- The stressed syllable, with an open e as in "bet" — the accent mark tells you to stress and open this vowel: "FEH."

-ri- A light tapped r (like the quick "tt" in American "butter") plus a fast "ee" gliding into the next vowel.

-as The final unstressed a reduces toward "uh," and the s at the very end of the word becomes a "sh" sound, giving "ush" rather than "az" or "ahs."

Hear it in a sentence

Vou de férias em agosto.

I'm going on vacation in August.

Listen: Vou de férias em agosto.

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"Vou de férias em agosto" uses ir de férias, a fixed expression meaning "to go on vacation," where de is required and cannot be dropped as it sometimes is in English. Férias is grammatically plural in Portuguese even when referring to one vacation period, so it always takes plural agreement (e.g., as férias, "the vacation").

Where English speakers slip

The final -s is the classic European marker: English speakers expect an s or z sound, but here it becomes a soft "sh," so férias ends closer to "FEH-ryush" than "FEH-ree-ahs." Brazilian Portuguese keeps this final s as a plain [s] or [z] sound, so the shift to "sh" is one of the clearest, most reliable ways to tell European pronunciation apart from Brazilian at a glance.