Portuguese (Portugal) · Pronunciation Guide

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

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

voo is pronounced with the stress described below. In IPA it is written [ˈvo.u]. It means “flight.” Say "VOH-oo," almost blended into one long vowel sound — this word is essentially just "vo" with a lingering, fading "oo."

Say "VOH-oo," almost blended into one long vowel sound — this word is essentially just "vo" with a lingering, fading "oo."

voo [ˈvo.u]

Stress falls on the first o; the double o is not two separate consonant-separated syllables but two vowels running together, often compressed in fast speech into something close to a single long "o."

Listen: voo

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Sound it out

vo- A clear, stressed "vo" as in "vote," without the English glide toward "w."

-o A second, unstressed o that fades quickly, almost disappearing in casual speech so the word can sound like just one long "vo."

Hear it in a sentence

O nosso voo atrasou-se.

Our flight was delayed.

Listen: O nosso voo atrasou-se.

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"O nosso voo atrasou-se" uses the reflexive verb atrasar-se ("to be delayed"), with the reflexive pronoun se attached after the verb by a hyphen, which is standard European Portuguese word order for many verb forms (rather than placing it before the verb, as is common in Brazilian speech). Nosso is the possessive "our," agreeing with the masculine noun voo.

Where English speakers slip

English speakers often want to insert a consonant sound, like a w or a glottal stop, between the two o's, saying something like "VO-woo"; European Portuguese instead glides the two vowels together smoothly with no interrupting consonant, and in fast speech they often merge into a single elongated "o." Treating voo as if it had a hidden "w" in the middle is the most common giveaway of a non-native accent here.