Portuguese (Portugal) · Pronunciation Guide

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

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

ovelha is pronounced with the stress described below. In IPA it is written [oˈvɐʎɐ]. It means “sheep.” Say "oh-VEH-lyuh", where lh is a single soft "ly" sound like the ll in Spanish "llama" or the "lli" in English "million".

Say "oh-VEH-lyuh", where lh is a single soft "ly" sound like the ll in Spanish "llama" or the "lli" in English "million".

ovelha [oˈvɐʎɐ]

Stress is on the second syllable VE; the digraph lh represents one palatal consonant sound, not an l followed by an h.

Listen: ovelha

Free browser voice. Hear it read by a real native speaker inside the LingoDrop app.

Sound it out

o- Unstressed initial syllable, a brief closed "oh".

-VE- Stressed, open e like English "bed", the loudest part of the word.

lha The lh digraph is one soft palatal sound, like the "lli" in "million" or Spanish ll; the final a reduces to "uh".

Hear it in a sentence

As ovelhas comem relva.

The sheep eat grass.

Listen: As ovelhas comem relva.

Free browser voice. Hear it read by a real native speaker inside the LingoDrop app.

"As ovelhas comem relva" pluralizes ovelha to ovelhas and uses comer (to eat) in the third-person plural comem. Relva (grass) appears here without an article, since it's treated as an uncountable mass noun, matching English "eat grass" with no article either.

Where English speakers slip

English speakers often try to pronounce lh as a separate l followed by an h sound, or as the English "l", but it must be produced as a single palatal consonant with the tongue spread against the roof of the mouth — mispronouncing it as a plain l is one of the most common errors, since English has no exact equivalent to this sound.