Portuguese (Portugal) · Pronunciation Guide

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

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

hospital is pronounced with the stress described below. In IPA it is written [ɔʃpiˈtal]. It means “hospital.” Say 'osh-pee-TAL', with a silent h, an 'sh' sound for the s before p, and stress landing hard on the final syllable.

Say 'osh-pee-TAL', with a silent h, an 'sh' sound for the s before p, and stress landing hard on the final syllable.

hospital [ɔʃpiˈtal]

Stress falls on the last syllable tal; the initial h is always silent in Portuguese, and the s before the consonant p is pronounced as 'sh', not a plain 's'.

Listen: hospital

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Sound it out

h Always silent in Portuguese — never pronounced, unlike English 'hospital'.

os An open 'o' as in 'pot', followed by s before a consonant, which turns into a soft 'sh' sound.

pi Unstressed, a quick, light 'pee'.

tal The stressed final syllable, with a true dental t and an open 'ah' followed by a dark, slightly velarized l, similar to the l at the end of English 'ball'.

Hear it in a sentence

O hospital fica perto da minha casa.

The hospital is near my house.

Listen: O hospital fica perto da minha casa.

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O hospital fica perto da minha casa uses ficar once more for location, with perto de ('close to') contracting to perto da before the feminine casa. Minha ('my') agrees with the feminine casa, distinct from meu, which was used earlier with the masculine carro and quarto — a good pair of sentences for noticing Portuguese possessive agreement.

Where English speakers slip

The two European-specific traps here are the silent h, which English speakers often want to voice out of habit, and the s before p, which should come out as 'sh' rather than a hissing English 's'. Additionally, stress falls on the final syllable tal, unlike the English word 'HOS-pi-tal', which stresses the first syllable — misplacing that stress is one of the fastest ways to sound foreign on this word.