Portuguese (Brazil) · Pronunciation Guide

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

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

pouco is pronounced with the stress described below. In IPA it is written /ˈpo.ku/. It means “little / few.” POH-koo. Like "outro," the ou is a plain "oh" with no "oo" after it.

POH-koo. Like "outro," the ou is a plain "oh" with no "oo" after it.

pouco /ˈpo.ku/

No accent needed; the first syllable is loud by rule. Grammatically the word behaves in two ways: as an adverb it's invariable, and as an adjective it agrees — "pouco dinheiro" but "poucas pessoas" — with the stress staying on the first syllable throughout every form.

Listen: pouco

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Sound it out

pou A p released without aspiration and the ou spelling flattened to a single closed "oh." This is the stressed syllable, and it should sound nothing like English "pow."

co Hard k, ending on "oo" — so the word runs "oh" then "oo," the same front-to-back movement as "outro."

Hear it in a sentence

Tenho pouco dinheiro.

I have little money.

Listen: Tenho pouco dinheiro.

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"Tenho pouco dinheiro" ends with "dinheiro," which packs in a palatalized "djee" at the front, an nh in the middle and a stressed "ei" diphthong. Against that, "pouco" is simple, but the flattened ou is easy to over-pronounce.

Where English speakers slip

"POW-koh" treats ou as the English diphthong in "loud" and leaves the final o unraised — two errors in a two-syllable word. It's "POH-koo." There's also a useful idiom to know: "um pouco" means a little in the neutral sense, while bare "pouco" leans negative, so "tenho pouco tempo" complains where "tenho um pouco de tempo" reassures.