Portuguese (Brazil) · Pronunciation Guide

How do you pronounce "as férias" in Portuguese (Brazil)?

Q: How do you pronounce as férias in Portuguese (Brazil)?

as férias is pronounced with the stress described below. In IPA it is written /as ˈfɛ.ɾi.as/. It means “vacation / holidays.” ahs FEH-ree-ahs. Accent on the first syllable, and the noun is always plural.

ahs FEH-ree-ahs. Accent on the first syllable, and the noun is always plural.

as férias /as ˈfɛ.ɾi.as/

A proparoxytone, stressed three syllables from the end and marked accordingly. The word has no singular form in ordinary use: holidays are always "as férias," plural, the way English trousers are always plural.

Listen: as férias

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Sound it out

as The feminine plural article, an open "ah" plus an s that voices to a z before the following vowel — so in practice you hear "ah-ZFEH," with the s bridging the two words.

fé An f and an accented open e — jaw dropped, like the vowel in "bet." The acute marks both the stress and the openness.

rias A single tap of the tongue tip, then an i and an a each taking their own beat, closed by a plural s. The two vowels don't fuse, which is why the word is stressed so far back.

Hear it in a sentence

Vamos viajar nas férias.

We're going to travel on vacation.

Listen: Vamos viajar nas férias.

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"Vamos viajar nas férias" uses "nas," the em-plus-plural-article contraction, and its s voices into the following f — actually staying a hiss there, since f is unvoiced. "Viajar" has a soft "zh" and a vanishing r, so the sentence ends softly.

Where English speakers slip

Squashing "ri-as" into one syllable is the standard error and it takes the accent's justification away with it. Using a singular "a féria" is the grammatical trap — that word exists but means a day's takings, not a holiday. And Brazilians say "férias" for a holiday period and "feriado" for a single public holiday.