Portuguese (Portugal) · Pronunciation Guide

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

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

morte is pronounced with the stress described below. In IPA it is written [ˈmɔɾ.tɨ]. It means “death.” Say "MAWR-tuh", with an open "aw" vowel and a barely-there final "uh" almost swallowed away.

Say "MAWR-tuh", with an open "aw" vowel and a barely-there final "uh" almost swallowed away.

morte [ˈmɔɾ.tɨ]

Stress is on the first syllable "mor", pronounced with an open o; the final unstressed "e" reduces almost to silence, and "t" stays a true dental sound, never "ch".

Listen: morte

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Sound it out

mor An open "o" as in English "law" or "lot", followed by a light tapped "r".

t A crisp, true dental "t", tongue against the back of the upper teeth — never softened into "ch" the way Brazilian Portuguese would render "t" before "i" (not relevant here since it's before "e", but the same true-dental principle applies).

e Unstressed final "e" collapses to a very faint, barely-voiced central sound, almost dropped entirely in casual speech.

Hear it in a sentence

A morte faz parte da vida.

Death is part of life.

Listen: A morte faz parte da vida.

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"A morte faz parte da vida" means "Death is part of life." "Fazer parte de" (literally "to make part of") is a fixed idiom meaning "to be part of"; here it contracts with the following "a" to form "da" (de + a = da), the same kind of contraction seen with "do" in the chuva example.

Where English speakers slip

Learners often pronounce the final "e" fully, saying something like "MOR-teh". In Lisbon-standard European Portuguese that final vowel is one of the most reduced sounds in the language — closer to a faint murmur than a clear vowel — quite different from the fuller final "e" or "i" heard in Brazilian Portuguese.