Portuguese (Portugal) · Pronunciation Guide

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

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

água is pronounced with the stress described below. In IPA it is written [ˈa.ɡwɐ]. It means “water.” Stress the first syllable hard — 'AH-gwuh' — and let the final a fade to a quick, swallowed 'uh' rather than a clear 'ah'.

Stress the first syllable hard — 'AH-gwuh' — and let the final a fade to a quick, swallowed 'uh' rather than a clear 'ah'.

água [ˈa.ɡwɐ]

Stress falls on the first syllable á, marked by the acute accent; gua counts as a single syllable because u and a glide together, and that final a is unstressed so it reduces almost to a schwa.

Listen: água

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Sound it out

á An open, stressed 'ah' as in English 'father', held clearly since it's the stressed syllable.

gu A hard English 'g' as in 'go', immediately followed by a 'w' glide — together sounding like 'gw'.

a The final, unstressed a is not a full 'ah' — it collapses toward a short, central 'uh', much lighter than the first a.

Hear it in a sentence

Bebo muita água.

I drink a lot of water.

Listen: Bebo muita água.

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Bebo muita água pairs beber (to drink) in its eu form bebo with muita (much/a lot of), which agrees with the feminine noun água. Muita here works like an adverb-adjective modifying the amount of water, similar to saying 'I drink a lot of water' in English, and it must always match the gender of the noun it describes.

Where English speakers slip

Learners often give both a's in água the same full 'ah' quality they'd use in Spanish 'agua'. In European Portuguese only the first, stressed a stays full; the second all but disappears into a weak 'uh', much more reduced than the fuller final vowel Brazilian speakers tend to keep.