Portuguese (Portugal) · Pronunciation Guide

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

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

pessoas is pronounced with the stress described below. In IPA it is written [pɨˈso.ɐʃ]. It means “people.” Say "puh-SOH-ush", with the first syllable barely there and the final "-as" ending in a soft "sh" sound.

Say "puh-SOH-ush", with the first syllable barely there and the final "-as" ending in a soft "sh" sound.

pessoas [pɨˈso.ɐʃ]

Stress falls on the second syllable "so"; the initial "pes-" reduces heavily, and the word-final s (here appearing after "a") is pronounced "sh", a hallmark of European Portuguese.

Listen: pessoas

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Sound it out

pes Unstressed, the e reduces close to a very short "uh", so it sounds almost like just "ps".

so Stressed, a closed "oh" sound.

as Unstressed final syllable: the a reduces to "uh", and because this s is at the very end of the word, it's pronounced "sh", giving an ending like "ush", not the "z" sound Brazilian speakers often use.

Hear it in a sentence

Há muitas pessoas na rua.

There are many people on the street.

Listen: Há muitas pessoas na rua.

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"Há muitas pessoas na rua" uses "há" (there is/are, from "haver"), an invariable existential form that doesn't change for plural the way English "are" does. "Muitas" agrees in feminine plural with "pessoas". "Na rua" contracts "em" + "a rua" (in the street), another routine article-preposition fusion in Portuguese.

Where English speakers slip

The single most distinctive European feature here is the final "s" sounding like "sh" — English speakers, and Brazilian-trained ears, tend to pronounce word-final s as a plain "s" or, in Brazilian Portuguese, sometimes closer to a soft "s"/"z"; European Portuguese consistently turns syllable-final and word-final s into a "sh" [ʃ] sound, so "pessoas" should end audibly in "-oo-ash", not "-oo-as".