Portuguese (Brazil) · Pronunciation Guide

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

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

parecer is pronounced with the stress described below. In IPA it is written /pa.ɾeˈseh/. It means “to seem.” pah-reh-SEH. The c before the e is a soft s, and the middle r is a single tap.

pah-reh-SEH. The c before the e is a soft s, and the middle r is a single tap.

parecer /pa.ɾeˈseh/

Part of a whole family of -ecer verbs — acontecer, conhecer, esquecer — that share this shape and all sprout a cedilla in the first-person present, giving "pareço" to keep the sound soft before an o. Every one of them is end-stressed.

Listen: parecer

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Sound it out

pa A crisp, breathless p and an open "ah," unstressed but clear. Portuguese doesn't hollow out this vowel the way English would.

re A single tapped r between vowels and a closed e. The tap is quick — one flick — and quite unlike the throaty r you'd get if this r opened the word.

cer Soft c before the e, so a plain s, then the stressed closed e. The r closing the word is the faintest thing in it.

Hear it in a sentence

Ele parece cansado.

He looks tired.

Listen: Ele parece cansado.

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"Ele parece cansado" uses the third-person present, stressed on the middle syllable: "pah-REH-see." That final e raises to i, and because the preceding sound is an s rather than a t or d, no palatalization occurs. "Cansado" then contributes a nasal first syllable and a raised final o.

Where English speakers slip

Reading the c as a k gives "pah-reh-KEHR," which is wrong on two counts. The c is soft before e, and the final r is breath. Learners also confuse "parecer" with "aparecer," which means to show up — one prefix apart and quite different in use. And "parece que" plus a clause is the natural way to say "it seems that," a construction worth having ready.