Portuguese (Portugal) · Pronunciation Guide

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

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

parque is pronounced with the stress described below. In IPA it is written [ˈpaɾ.kɨ]. It means “park.” Say 'PAR-kuh', with a light tapped r and the final e almost silent, more like a faint 'kuh' than 'keh'.

Say 'PAR-kuh', with a light tapped r and the final e almost silent, more like a faint 'kuh' than 'keh'.

parque [ˈpaɾ.kɨ]

Stress is on the first syllable par; qu before e is pronounced as a plain 'k' with no w-glide, and the unstressed final e is heavily reduced, nearly disappearing.

Listen: parque

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Sound it out

par An open 'ah' vowel followed by a light tapped r, like the r in Spanish 'pero'.

que Qu before e is just a plain 'k' sound (the u is silent here, unlike in quarto), and the final e is barely voiced, trailing off to almost nothing.

Hear it in a sentence

Vamos ao parque com o cão.

Let's go to the park with the dog.

Listen: Vamos ao parque com o cão.

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Vamos ao parque com o cão uses ir in its nós form vamos ('we go/let's go'), with ao contracting a + o before the masculine parque. Com o cão ('with the dog') closes the sentence, and cão itself carries the same nasal ão ending practiced in word #248, pão.

Where English speakers slip

Because parque ends in -que, English speakers sometimes want to pronounce a full, clear 'keh' at the end, as though it rhymed with 'kay'. In European Portuguese that final e all but vanishes, leaving something closer to 'park' with a faint trailing consonant than a fully two-syllable-sounding word — much more clipped than a Brazilian speaker would typically render it.