Portuguese (Brazil) · Pronunciation Guide

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

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

gostar is pronounced with the stress described below. In IPA it is written /gosˈtah/. It means “to like.” goss-TAH. Hard g, a clean s in the middle, and stress on the final syllable.

goss-TAH. Hard g, a clean s in the middle, and stress on the final syllable.

gostar /gosˈtah/

goss-TAH as an infinitive, GOSS-too in the present — and in that present form the stressed o is open rather than closed, an alternation Portuguese performs silently and never bothers to mark in the spelling.

Listen: gostar

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Sound it out

gos A hard g before an o, a closed "oh," and a syllable-closing s that stays a hiss in most of Brazil. Cariocas turn it into "sh," so "goshTAH" is a Rio variant.

tar Dental t and a jaw-dropped stressed vowel. Coming straight off the rounded "oh" of the first syllable, that jump in vowel width is what makes the stress placement obvious. The r is a whisper.

Hear it in a sentence

Eu gosto de café.

I like coffee.

Listen: Eu gosto de café.

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"Eu gosto de café" contains the grammatical heart of this verb: it requires the preposition "de." That "de" is pronounced "djee," so the phrase runs "GOSS-too-djee-ka-FEH." Omitting the preposition is one of the most common learner errors in the language, and it's audible immediately.

Where English speakers slip

Beyond the usual final-r problem, the real trap is the grammar: "gosto café" is wrong, and so is treating the verb like English "like" where the thing liked is a direct object. Portuguese requires "gostar de," and when the object is a pronoun you get "gosto dele" rather than "gosto ele." Spanish speakers face a different confusion, since Spanish "gustar" reverses the subject and object entirely.