Portuguese (Brazil) · Pronunciation Guide

How do you pronounce "a escola" in Portuguese (Brazil)?

Q: How do you pronounce a escola in Portuguese (Brazil)?

a escola is pronounced with the stress described below. In IPA it is written /a isˈkɔ.lɐ/. It means “school.” ah iss-KAW-lah. The initial e sounds like an i, and the stressed o is wide open.

ah iss-KAW-lah. The initial e sounds like an i, and the stressed o is wide open.

a escola /a isˈkɔ.lɐ/

The open o is the loud one. The open quality of that stressed o goes unmarked in the spelling, which is the usual state of affairs — Portuguese writes ó or ô only when an accent is required for some independent reason, so most open-closed distinctions have to be learned word by word.

Listen: a escola

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Sound it out

es The unstressed initial e raises toward "i," so this opens "iss." It's the same shift you get in estar, esperar and escrever — one small habit covering a lot of vocabulary.

co A firm k before the o, and the o itself is open — jaw down, like the vowel in "thought." This is the stressed syllable and the word's clear peak.

la The l keeps full tongue-tip contact, opening its syllable rather than closing one. The final a then lightens toward "uh" without disappearing.

Hear it in a sentence

A escola fica perto daqui.

The school is near here.

Listen: A escola fica perto daqui.

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"A escola fica perto daqui" uses "ficar" for location, the Brazilian default. "Daqui" is de plus aqui fused into one word, and "perto" has an open stressed e plus a breathy r — so the sentence pairs two open vowels a few syllables apart.

Where English speakers slip

Saying "ess-" rather than "iss-" at the front is the standard reading error, and closing the stressed o is the second. Spanish speakers have "escuela," whose diphthong tempts them into inserting a w-glide that Portuguese doesn't have. And the l here stays a real l — vocalization only happens when it closes a syllable.