Portuguese (Portugal) · Pronunciation Guide

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

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

música is pronounced with the stress described below. In IPA it is written [ˈmuzikɐ]. It means “music.” Say "MOO-zee-kuh", stressing the very first syllable hard, since the written accent on ú overrides the usual stress rules.

Say "MOO-zee-kuh", stressing the very first syllable hard, since the written accent on ú overrides the usual stress rules.

música [ˈmuzikɐ]

The acute accent on ú marks an irregular stress on the first syllable (words ending in -a would normally stress the second-to-last syllable, but the accent forces it further forward); the final a reduces to "uh".

Listen: música

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Sound it out

MÚ- Stressed and long, "moo" — hold this vowel clearly since the whole word's rhythm depends on it standing out.

-si- The s here is between vowels, so it sounds like an English z, giving "zee", not a hissed s.

-ca Unstressed final syllable, reduced to "kuh" rather than a full, open "kah".

Hear it in a sentence

Estou a ouvir música.

I'm listening to music.

Listen: Estou a ouvir música.

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"Estou a ouvir música" uses the European Portuguese continuous construction estar + a + infinitive ("I am at hearing") to express "I'm listening to", which is the standard progressive form in Portugal — Brazilian Portuguese would instead say estou ouvindo. There's no article before música here, matching English "listening to music" as a general, uncountable activity.

Where English speakers slip

English speakers often stress the second syllable, "mu-SI-ca", by analogy with the English word "music" or Spanish patterns; in European Portuguese the accent mark demands stress on the very first syllable, MÚ-si-ca, and skipping that stress makes the word hard for a native listener to parse.