Portuguese (Brazil) · Pronunciation Guide

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

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

três is pronounced with the stress described below. In IPA it is written /ˈtɾes/. It means “three.” TRAYSS, but the r is a single flick of the tongue, not an English r — think of the r in Spanish "tres."

TRAYSS, but the r is a single flick of the tongue, not an English r — think of the r in Spanish "tres."

três /ˈtɾes/

One syllable, so stress is fixed — the circumflex is here purely to lock in the closed vowel quality, since a bare "tres" would leave the reader guessing between the open and closed e. Portuguese uses accents on monosyllables like this specifically to disambiguate vowel colour rather than placement.

Listen: três

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Sound it out

tr The t is dental and unaspirated, and the r inside this cluster is one quick tap of the tongue tip. Many Brazilians, especially in São Paulo, also give this combination a slight "tch" flavor, so "tchress" is a real regional variant.

ê The circumflex specifies the closed e — the tight "ay" of "day" without any glide at the end. An open "eh" here would be the vowel of a different word entirely.

s A crisp final s. It becomes a z when the next word starts with a vowel, so "três anos" runs as "tray-ZAH-noos."

Hear it in a sentence

São três horas.

It's three o'clock.

Listen: São três horas.

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"São três horas" strings together three h-less words that all link: "são" ends in a nasal diphthong, and the s of "três" turns into a z before the vowel of "horas" — the h in Portuguese is always silent. The whole phrase runs together as "sowng-tray-ZOH-ruhs."

Where English speakers slip

English speakers produce "trayz" with a bunched American r, which changes the whole shape of the cluster. The tongue tip should flick once against the ridge and release immediately. The second failure is the vowel: reading it as "tress" with the vowel of "dress" is wrong — the circumflex demands the tighter, higher "ay."