Portuguese (Portugal) · Pronunciation Guide

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

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

relva is pronounced with the stress described below. In IPA it is written [ˈʁɛlvɐ]. It means “grass.” Say "HHEL-vuh" with a raspy, throat-clearing r sound at the start — think of the French r or a gentle gargle, not an English or tapped r.

Say "HHEL-vuh" with a raspy, throat-clearing r sound at the start — think of the French r or a gentle gargle, not an English or tapped r.

relva [ˈʁɛlvɐ]

Stress is on the first syllable REL; the word-initial r is the strong, guttural European Portuguese r, not the light tap used between vowels elsewhere.

Listen: relva

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

Sound it out

r- Word-initial r in Portugal is typically a strong, uvular or guttural sound — similar to a French r or a light gargle in the back of the throat — quite unlike the tapped r found in words like cavalo.

-el- An open e like English "bed", followed by an l pronounced clearly (not the dark, throaty l some English dialects use at syllable end).

-va Unstressed final syllable, the a reducing to a soft "uh".

Hear it in a sentence

A relva está molhada.

The grass is wet.

Listen: A relva está molhada.

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

"A relva está molhada" uses estar (temporary state) with the adjective molhada (wet), correctly agreeing in feminine gender with relva — a good example of estar + adjective describing a changeable condition, versus ser which would describe a permanent trait. Relva is the European Portuguese word for grass/lawn, whereas Brazilian Portuguese more commonly uses grama.

Where English speakers slip

The guttural word-initial r is one of the hardest sounds for English speakers to get right; many default to either the American English r or the light Portuguese tap used mid-word, but Lisbon Portuguese requires that stronger, throat-produced r at the start of relva, similar in spirit to a French r, and softening it noticeably changes how natural the word sounds.