Still can't hear European Portuguese? Listen to the Queen

Added: 2026-05-23

[00:00:00]Do you see the words popping up around me? If you're clueless as to how to pronounce them, let me show you how to sound natural so locals actually understand you even if you're pronouncing a new word. The secret lies in spotting the stressed syllable or the queen as I like to call it while watching out for two almost silent letters you will hardly hear in fast speech. If you manage to answer these three questions, you will be able to pronounce a word in a way that people actually understand you. An added bonus is that you will start understanding what people say. This in schooler who'd communicate in Portuguese for two years, but it was only when she heard my queen metaphor that it all made much more sense. Okay, so the first question is whenever you look at a word in Portuguese, ask yourself where is the queen? I like to see Portuguese, I mean the language, as a monarchy meaning there's one part of the word that you will hear more than the rest which sticks out. It has more power, let's say. If there's a queen, then likely there's mistresses which you we keep quiet about. This is why we're notorious for swallowing letters. Mistresses are important for the ecosystem, but it's not wise to make it too obvious they exist. We know about them, we mumble through them, and that's that. But as I was saying, where is the queen? She's usually in the penultimate syllable of words. Cool fun, giraffe, book.

[00:01:36]That is the rule. Now, are you ready for the exceptions? There's always exceptions, but I promise they'll be easy to remember. In fact, my in schooler came up with a super easy way to remember one of the two exceptions.

[00:01:51]Since the queen loves when the letters I, R, U, L, Z, she started thinking of it as the queen saying I rule, I rules.

[00:02:01]See if you can hear the end more clearly of these words. Here, here, here.

[00:02:06]singular museum formal fleece There's one more exception, but I I swear it's the last one. I'm talking about accents here. I explain about this and some other important rules as to how we speak in my listen to Portuguese masterclass. You can check it out afterwards in the link below. So, if you ever see one of these accents on a word, this is the queen wearing a hat warning you she's changed places. Instead of saying facile because you see an L at the end of the word, you say that A at the start loud and clear because of the accent. Facile. The rest of the word is a mistress, so you keep quiet about it.

[00:02:52]Facile. And in case it isn't clear, getting this right means you're understood. It might take us a moment to understand what you mean if you say facile simply because we're not used to it. And on the flip side, you start understanding us much better. Like this in schooler, it was only after focusing on the queen that she managed to fully understand the taxi driver. Okay, now that you know how to locate the queen in a word in Portuguese, let's jump to the second question you must ask yourself if you want to pronounce a word correctly.

[00:03:29]Is there an E in the word outside the queen syllable? If yes, you don't pronounce it. The word for interesting in Portuguese is a good example of that.

[00:03:38]Interesting. Since the queen is in say, the other three E's just vanish. It's as if they weren't even there. Interesting.

[00:03:48]If you think only beginners mishear or misplace the queen, think again. This in schooler can speak quite well already.

[00:03:56]He understands me really well, too. And yet the other day he didn't catch the word fisherman fisherman because he'd been pronouncing the E in his head when in fact it should be silent. Fisherman, not fisherman. Self-awareness is such a good skill to have. Now, the third and final question you need to ask yourself to be able to pronounce any word in Portuguese is, are there any O's in other syllables? If yes, you better be sure they will be pronounced O.

[00:04:27]Sometimes it sounds like we don't say them at all, but believe me, we do even if just a tiny bit. Some examples are jacket time fear Obviously, there is a big difference between knowing the theory and actually being able to apply it. So now I'll show you a very simple trick for you to feel the queen. All it takes is this. Yes, a toothpick. If I try to say a word in Spanish, I'll just drop it. I'm trying to doesn't work. Gosh, this is horrible.

[00:05:02]But in Portuguese, even if I open the vowel in the queen position, I still manage without dropping the toothpick.

[00:05:11]Interesting. Interesting. Interesting.

[00:05:14]Okay, I can say it in Spanish, but it's different. I'll now read the synopsis of a book by Marco Neves the A to Z from Wook's website. See if you can hear the queen in each word. And of course, you can also shadow me while I read it as slowly as possible. I'll drop this in for now, but you can try to do it with it.

[00:05:35]This book has a purpose. Serve as a tool for those who write. Practical and easy to consult, it is organized in alphabetical order from A to Z. It is a book that serves to untangle the language. Concentrate on the doubts we have when putting the words on paper or on the screen. Not forgetting the wonders of Portuguese.

[00:06:14]From its origin to the history of our letters.

[00:06:21]The biggest trap of all is seeing the language as a minefield.

[00:06:29]minefield Between doubts and difficulties, the truth is that we all have the grammar of Portuguese in our heads. We just need to train and improve its use through reading, writing, and consulting books like this Wait a minute. I was not pronouncing words in isolation here. Other stuff was going on while you were focusing on the queen or keeping the toothpick in your mouth while shadowing along. In this video, I talk about the king of Portuguese. If there's a queen, of course there's a king, right? And in it, I explain how we pronounce chunks of words, not just individual ones.