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Portuguese (Portugal) · Pronunciation Guide
How do you pronounce "olhar" in Portuguese (Portugal)?
Sounds like "oo-LYAR" — the first letter tightens to "oo", and lh sounds like the "lli" in English "million".
Stress falls on -lhar; the unstressed initial o closes toward "oo", and lh is one single palatal sound, never pronounced as separate l and h.
Listen: olhar
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Hear it in a sentence
Olha para aquele carro!
Look at that car!
Listen: Olha para aquele carro!
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"Olha para aquele carro!" ("Look at that car!") is an imperative using olha, the tu command form, paired with olhar para ("to look at"), where para is the obligatory preposition — unlike English "look at", Portuguese requires para rather than a. Aquele is the masculine demonstrative for something farther from the speaker, matching carro. Exclamation intonation carries the excitement here rather than any special word order.
Where English speakers slip
Learners often try to translate "look at" word-for-word and use olhar a instead of the required olhar para, which sounds ungrammatical. On pronunciation, the lh digraph is again a common stumbling block — it must be a single palatal glide, not an l followed by a separate h sound, and the unstressed initial o should tighten toward "oo" rather than staying a clear "oh".