LingoDrop
Portuguese (Portugal) · Pronunciation Guide
How do you pronounce "ir" in Portuguese (Portugal)?
Just "eer" said short and clipped, with a light tapped r at the end, not a drawn-out English r.
One syllable, fully stressed; the vowel is a tight, close "ee" sound, shorter than English "ear".
Listen: ir
Free browser voice. Hear it read by a real native speaker inside the LingoDrop app.
Sound it out
Hear it in a sentence
Vou para casa.
I'm going home.
Listen: Vou para casa.
Free browser voice. Hear it read by a real native speaker inside the LingoDrop app.
"Vou para casa" uses vou, the irregular first-person present of ir, to express going somewhere — ir is one of the most irregular verbs in Portuguese and its conjugated forms bear little resemblance to the infinitive. Para here signals destination ("to/toward home"), distinct from a, which can also mean "to" but with different nuances of movement. Casa without an article is idiomatic for "home", much like English drops "the" in "going home".
Where English speakers slip
Because ir is so irregular, learners often try to build sentences around the infinitive form itself, but in real speech you'll almost always hear vou, vais, vai, etc. instead. On pronunciation, English speakers tend to lengthen the vowel into something like "eer" with a strong final r; EP keeps it short and taps the r lightly, never rolling or emphasizing it as Brazilian speech sometimes does.