Portuguese (Brazil) · Pronunciation Guide

How do you pronounce "o policial" in Portuguese (Brazil)?

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

o policial is pronounced with the stress described below. In IPA it is written /u po.li.siˈaw/. It means “police officer.” oo poh-lee-see-OW. Five syllables, stress at the end, and the final l turns into a w.

oo poh-lee-see-OW. Five syllables, stress at the end, and the final l turns into a w.

o policial /u po.li.siˈaw/

End-stressed, as l-final words are by rule, unmarked. The word is long enough that the placement genuinely matters, and it's worth noting that the "ci-al" ending stays two syllables rather than collapsing — Portuguese resists gliding a stressed vowel onto an unstressed i before it.

Listen: o policial

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Sound it out

po A p made with no puff of air and a closed "oh," unstressed. The vowel stays "oh" — the raising rule touches only a word-final unstressed o.

li The l is fully articulated, tongue tip up since it opens the syllable, with a short high "ee" behind it.

ci The c is soft before an i, so a plain s, and the i stands as its own syllable rather than gliding into the vowel after it.

al A wide-open stressed a with an l that closes the syllable and therefore vocalizes fully to a w. The ending rhymes with English "cow."

Hear it in a sentence

O policial parou o carro.

The police officer stopped the car.

Listen: O policial parou o carro.

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"O policial parou o carro" contains "parou" with a tapped r and a flattened -ou, then "carro" with a double rr that is a throat-h. So the sentence has a tap and a guttural in adjacent words, both written with the letter r.

Where English speakers slip

A real l gives "poh-lee-see-AL," and squashing "ci-al" into one syllable costs a beat. Both are standard. The word is also common-gender: a female officer is "a policial," with only the article changing, which surprises learners expecting an -a ending.