Portuguese (Brazil) · Pronunciation Guide

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

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

o vestido is pronounced with the stress described below. In IPA it is written /u vesˈtʃi.du/. It means “dress.” oo vess-TCHEE-doo. The stressed syllable is "tchee," not "tee."

oo vess-TCHEE-doo. The stressed syllable is "tchee," not "tee."

o vestido /u vesˈtʃi.du/

Put the weight on the middle syllable — and that stressed syllable is also the palatalized one, which makes it unusually prominent. Many learners meet palatalization first in quiet final syllables like "noite," so hearing it under full stress here is a useful corrective.

Listen: o vestido

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Sound it out

ves A clear v, a closed e, and a syllable-closing s that stays a hiss for most Brazilians. Unstressed and quick.

ti Here the palatalization lands on the stressed syllable: t plus an i gives "tch," the sound that opens English "cheese." Stress makes no difference to the rule — the following vowel is all that matters.

do A hard d, since an o follows rather than an i, ending on "oo." So the word contains a palatalized t and an unpalatalized d in adjacent syllables.

Hear it in a sentence

Que vestido bonito!

What a pretty dress!

Listen: Que vestido bonito!

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"Que vestido bonito!" uses the bare "que" exclamation with no article, the standard Portuguese pattern. "Bonito" agrees with the masculine noun and keeps its first o unraised, since only the word-final unstressed one lifts.

Where English speakers slip

"vess-TEE-doh" keeps a hard t and leaves the final o unraised — two errors in one short word. It's "TCHEE" and "doo." Learners also over-correct and palatalize the d as well, when its following vowel is an o and the rule doesn't apply.