Portuguese (Portugal) · Pronunciation Guide

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

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

mês is pronounced with the stress described below. In IPA it is written /meʃ/. It means “month.” Say "mesh" — one syllable, with the final "s" hissing like the "sh" in "fish" rather than a plain "s".

Say "mesh" — one syllable, with the final "s" hissing like the "sh" in "fish" rather than a plain "s".

mês /meʃ/

A single stressed syllable with a closed "ê" vowel (marked by the circumflex accent); the word-final "s" is pronounced "sh" as always in European Portuguese.

Listen: mês

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Sound it out

m A standard English "m" sound, no differences here.

ê A closed "eh" vowel, roughly like the vowel in English "bet" but held slightly tighter — the circumflex accent signals this closed quality and marks the stress.

s Word-final "s" becomes a "sh" sound, like English "fish", never a plain hissing "s" or a "z".

Hear it in a sentence

O meu aniversário é este mês.

My birthday is this month.

Listen: O meu aniversário é este mês.

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"O meu aniversário é este mês" means "My birthday is this month", with "mês" taking the masculine demonstrative "este" ("this"). Note the accent on "mês" is essential — dropping it changes nothing in this particular word's spelling risk, but the circumflex is a helpful visual reminder of the closed vowel quality and the required stress, useful since it's a one-syllable word where stress placement might otherwise seem ambiguous.

Where English speakers slip

The word-final "s" as "sh" is the headline feature here, and it's easy to default to a plain English "s" sound instead, especially since "mês" looks so much like English "mes-" words. Brazilian Portuguese pronounces this same "s" as a regular hissing "s", so listeners used to Brazilian audio may need to consciously retrain toward the softer, shushing European sound.