Portuguese (Portugal) · Pronunciation Guide

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

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

jogo is pronounced with the stress described below. In IPA it is written [ˈʒɔɡu]. It means “game.” Say "ZHAW-goo" — the j is the soft "zh" sound of the s in "pleasure", and the final o clips to a short "oo".

Say "ZHAW-goo" — the j is the soft "zh" sound of the s in "pleasure", and the final o clips to a short "oo".

jogo [ˈʒɔɡu]

Stress is on the first syllable JO, which has an open o (like "jaw"); the final o is unstressed and reduces toward "oo".

Listen: jogo

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Sound it out

j Always the soft "zh" sound as in "measure" or "vision" — never the English hard j of "jog".

-o- The stressed o here is open, closer to the vowel in English "saw" than to a closed "oh".

-go Unstressed final syllable: the g is a hard g as in "go", but the o shrinks to a clipped "oo".

Hear it in a sentence

Vamos jogar um jogo.

Let's play a game.

Listen: Vamos jogar um jogo.

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"Vamos jogar um jogo" pairs the verb jogar (to play a game) with its related noun jogo (game/match), a common Portuguese pattern of using a verb and its cognate noun together, similar to English "play a game". Vamos + infinitive is the everyday way to say "let's...", using the first-person-plural of ir (to go) as a suggestion marker rather than a literal movement.

Where English speakers slip

The biggest trap is pronouncing j as the hard English "j" sound in "jogo" instead of the correct soft "zh"; this is one of the clearest giveaways of a foreign accent, since Portuguese never uses the hard English j sound for this letter, in either European or Brazilian varieties.