Brazilian Portuguese Pronunciation Guide: Vowels, Consonants and Diphthongs

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  1. Vowels:

A – When ‘a’ is stressed, then the pronounciation we get would be similar to the ‘a’ in father, but a shorter ‘a’ in father. For example, the word “fado” is pronounced “fahdoo”. If it is not stressed, then it is pronounced like the ‘e’ in ‘rather’. The word “mesa” would then be pronounced as “meza”, which means “table”.

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A – The ‘a’ with a tilde on top is typically pronounced like the ‘un’ in the word “lung”, but processed to take on a more nasal undertone – the word “maca” is one example. “Maca” means “apple”.

E – 1. Stressing ‘e’ will make it sound like the ‘e’ in “sell”. The Brazilian Portuguese word “perto”, which is pronounced “perhtoo”, whose definition is “near”, is one example of the ‘e’ being pronounced as intended. The ‘ey’ in the English word “prey” is another similar sound that represents the Brazilian Portuguese version of ‘e’, and how it is intended to be pronounced while used when it remains unstressed. The Brazilian Portuguese word “bebida”, which means “drink”, would
have it’s ‘e’ letter pronounced as the ‘ey in the English word “prey”, meaning it would be pronounced as if it were spelled “beybeeda” using English spelling rules.

  1. It is also fascinating to note that at the end of a word, ‘e’ is usually pronounced as the ‘ee’ sound in the English word “peep”, meaning that the word “cidade”, which means “city”, would be pronounced as “seedahjee”. In contrast, European Portuguese has a rule in which the ‘e’ at the end of a word is a silent ‘e’, and therefore not pronounced at all. The ‘e’ at the end of “tarde”, as a result, would be pronounced as “tard”. This means “late” or “afternoon” in European Portuguese.
  2. When it pertains to the Brazilian Portuguese word for “and”, which is simply an “e” in itself, it is usually pronounced as the ‘ee’ in the English word “sweep”.

I – This one is pronounced like the letter ‘e’ in the English word “evil”. One would have to pronounce the word “decidir”, which means “to decide”, by saying “deseedeer”. However, when it is used in an unstressed manner, it ends up sounding similar to the letter ‘i’ in the English word “pin”. The Brazilian Portuguese word “idade” would therefore be pronounced as follows: idahjee. This word means “age”.

O – If this letter is used in a stressed manner, or the pronounciation is meant to be hard or acute, then it would end up sounding like the letter ‘o’ in the English word “opera”. It would however remain closed with prior utilization to a nasal constonant. The Brazilian Portuguese
word “fome”, which means “hunger” in English, is one example of this. If it is unstressed, then it is utilized in a similar fashion to the double ‘o’s’ in book, or the ‘oo’ of the English word “book”, and therefore ends up being pronounced with an “oh” sound, as with the example of the Brazilian Portuguese word for “cat”, which is “gato”. It will end up sounding like “gatoh” or “gatooh”. It is usually the most common sound as it pertains to the letter ‘o’ in the Brazilian Portuguese language. Another example of this would be the ‘o’ in “police”. The word “motorista”, which means “driver”, is pronounced with the ‘oh’ sound for the ‘o’ letters in the word.

U – This letter is pronounced like the ‘oo’ in the “roof”. The word “rua”, which means street, has it’s ‘u’ pronounced in this fashion. As far as the following four words go, it typically does not get pronounced in that fashion: gue, gui, que and qui.

  1. Consonants:

B – This letter is pronounced similar to the ‘b’ letter in the English word “bank”. Therefore the Brazilian Portuguese word for “thank you” which is “obrigado”, would therefore be pronounced as “obreegahdoo”.

C – In Brazilian Portuguese spelling and pronounciation rules, the way ‘c’ would be pronounced if it came after an ‘e’ letter of ‘i’ letter would be a sort of soft ‘c’, similar to the ‘s’ in the English word “slow”. The word for “city”, which is “cidade”, would therefore be pronounced “seedahjee”, instead of “keedade”. If the ‘c’ being used in a word has a cedilla below it, or a little hook on the bottom of the ‘c’, then it should always be pronounced in it’s soft variant. If however, it is before an ‘o’ or an ‘a’ letter, then it would be pronounced as a hard ‘c’, similar to the ‘c’ in the word “card”. So the word for “here” – “cah” would be pronounced with a hard ‘c’, so it sounds like “kah”.

D – The ‘d’ is typically pronounced as a hard ‘d’, similar to the ‘d’ in the word “sad”. “Tenda”, which means “tent”, has this hard sounding ‘d’. It would be pronounced as “tendah”. If it comes prior to an unstressed ‘i’ or ‘e’, then it would be pronounced similar to the ‘ji’ in the word “jinx”. One example of this would be “dificuldade”, which would be pronounced as
“djeefeeculdahjee”, which means “difficulty”.