Portuguese (Brazil) · Pronunciation Guide

How do you pronounce "assustado" in Portuguese (Brazil)?

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

assustado is pronounced with the stress described below. In IPA it is written /a.susˈta.du/. It means “scared.” ah-soos-TAH-doo. The double s is one plain hiss, and so is the second one.

ah-soos-TAH-doo. The double s is one plain hiss, and so is the second one.

assustado /a.susˈta.du/

Four syllables, and the third is the loud one. The word is worth noticing for its sibilants: three s-spellings, all unvoiced, for three different structural reasons — a doubled s to block voicing, a syllable-final s that never voices anyway, and nothing else competing.

Listen: assustado

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Sound it out

ss Doubled to keep the sound unvoiced between vowels — a single s there would buzz into a z. Portuguese has no long consonants, so nothing is held; the doubling is a spelling instruction only.

us A rounded "oo" closed off by an s that stays a hiss for most Brazilians. Cariocas turn this syllable-final s into "sh," so "ah-soosh-TAH-doo" is a Rio variant.

ta A firm dental t and the wide-open stressed a. This is the loud beat after two quiet ones.

do A hard d, since an o follows rather than an i, and that last o is pronounced "oo."

Hear it in a sentence

A criança está assustada.

The child is scared.

Listen: A criança está assustada.

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"A criança está assustada" agrees the adjective with the feminine noun. "Criança" has a tapped r in its cluster, a nasal stressed vowel and a cedilla, so it's the harder of the two words despite being shorter.

Where English speakers slip

Lengthening the double s is the phonetic slip, and voicing either s to a z is the more audible one. Both stay hisses. Learners also confuse "assustado" with "com medo": the first is startled or frightened by something specific, while "estar com medo" is the general state of being afraid.