Portuguese (Portugal) · Pronunciation Guide

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

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

pedra is pronounced with the stress described below. In IPA it is written [ˈpɛdɾɐ]. It means “stone.” Say "PEH-druh", with an open stressed e and the final a softened to "uh"; the dr cluster stays tight together.

Say "PEH-druh", with an open stressed e and the final a softened to "uh"; the dr cluster stays tight together.

pedra [ˈpɛdɾɐ]

Stress is on the first syllable PE, which has an open e sound; the consonant cluster -dr- in the second syllable is pronounced as one tight unit with a light tapped r.

Listen: pedra

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Sound it out

PE- Stressed and open, like the e in English "bed", held clearly.

-dr- A true dental d (tongue against the teeth, not the alveolar ridge as in English) blended tightly with a light tapped r — never the Brazilian tendency to affricate this into something like "dj-r".

-a Unstressed final a, reduced to a light "uh".

Hear it in a sentence

Encontrei uma pedra bonita.

I found a beautiful stone.

Listen: Encontrei uma pedra bonita.

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"Encontrei uma pedra bonita" uses the past tense of encontrar (to find) and places the adjective bonita (pretty) after the noun, as is standard word order for most descriptive adjectives in Portuguese. Uma pedra uses the indefinite article to mean "a stone" (one among many, not specified).

Where English speakers slip

The d in pedra should stay a crisp, true dental d, articulated with the tongue against the upper teeth; English speakers sometimes soften it or, influenced by Brazilian Portuguese patterns (which affricate d before i to a "j"-like sound), assume similar softening happens here too — but since this d is followed by r, not i, it should remain a clean, non-affricated dental d in the European standard.