LingoDrop
Portuguese (Portugal) · Pronunciation Guide
How do you pronounce "querer" in Portuguese (Portugal)?
Sounds like "kuh-RAIR" — the first syllable shrinks to a fast, muted "kuh", and the stress falls on the second syllable.
Stress is on the final -rer; the unstressed que- reduces heavily, and the qu is always a hard "k" sound, never "kw".
Listen: querer
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Sound it out
Hear it in a sentence
Quero um café.
I want a coffee.
Listen: Quero um café.
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"Quero um café" is the everyday way to order something in a café — quero ("I want") is considered polite enough for ordering, though gostaria ("I would like") is more formal. Um café defaults to a small, strong espresso in Portugal, unlike the larger drip coffee assumed by "café" in English. This is a simple present-tense statement with no need for please (por favor) to sound polite, though adding it is common courtesy.
Where English speakers slip
English speakers often pronounce the qu- like the English "qu" in "queen" (a "kw" sound); in Portuguese it's always a plain "k". Also, because the first syllable reduces so much in EP, learners trained on Brazilian audio — where unstressed vowels are pronounced more fully — may not recognize quero when spoken quickly by a Lisbon speaker, since it can sound almost like "kreh" rather than the fuller "keh-reh" of Brazilian pronunciation.