Portuguese (Portugal) · Pronunciation Guide

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

Say 'seh-oo' fast — the same 'eu' glide as in 'meu' and 'teu', with a plain 's' in front.

seu [sew]

Single syllable, stressed; same falling diphthong as the other possessives ending in -eu.

Listen: seu

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Sound it out

s A plain 's' sound, like English 's' in 'see', since it starts the word rather than sitting at a syllable boundary.

eu Glides from open 'eh' into 'w', as in 'eu', 'meu', and 'teu'.

Hear it in a sentence

Ela perdeu o seu livro.

She lost her book.

Listen: Ela perdeu o seu livro.

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'Ela perdeu o seu livro' uses 'seu' to mean 'his' or 'her' — notably ambiguous, since 'seu' covers both third-person possessors and can even mean 'your' (formal). Context, as here with 'ela' (she) established earlier in the sentence, tells you it means 'her'.

Where English speakers slip

Beyond the shared glide issue with other -eu words, the real trap with 'seu' is grammatical, not phonetic: English speakers expect a word that clearly marks 'his' vs 'her' the way English does, but Portuguese 'seu/sua' doesn't distinguish the possessor's gender at all — only the possessed noun's gender ('seu livro' vs 'sua casa'), which takes practice to internalize.