Portuguese (Portugal) · Pronunciation Guide

How do you pronounce "por favor" in Portuguese (Portugal)?

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

por favor is pronounced with the stress described below. In IPA it is written [puɾ fɐˈvoɾ]. It means “please.” poor fuh-VOR — 'por' is a clipped, short sound close to English 'poor' but tighter; 'favor' stresses its second syllable, 'vor', ending in the same light r-sound.

poor fuh-VOR — 'por' is a clipped, short sound close to English 'poor' but tighter; 'favor' stresses its second syllable, 'vor', ending in the same light r-sound.

por favor [puɾ fɐˈvoɾ]

"Por" is a short, largely unstressed function word here; the phrase's main stress lands on the second syllable of "favor" ("-vor"), where the 'o' is a closed vowel similar to the 'o' in 'vote' but shorter.

Listen: por favor

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

Sound it out

por A clipped sound close to English 'poor'; the final 'r' is a light alveolar tap, not the strong American 'r' — closer to a Spanish or Scottish single tap.

fa Unstressed 'fa' with a reduced neutral vowel, like the 'a' in 'sofa'.

vor Stressed syllable: 'v' as in English, a closed 'o' vowel, and the same light tapped 'r' as in 'por'.

Hear it in a sentence

Um café, por favor.

A coffee, please.

Listen: Um café, por favor.

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

"Um café, por favor" shows the standard word order: item first, then "por favor" tacked on at the end, exactly parallel to English "a coffee, please." It's polite in essentially any register, from ordering coffee to formal requests.

Where English speakers slip

Learners often pronounce the final 'r' sounds in "por" and "favor" as a strong English or French 'r'; in European Portuguese it's a quick, light alveolar tap — don't roll it or make it heavy, which can sound overdone or foreign.