Portuguese IPA

Portuguese is the language that looks like Spanish and sounds like nothing else on the Iberian peninsula. Seven stressed vowels, five nasal ones, a handful of nasal diphthongs, and an r that changes depending on which side of the Atlantic you are standing on. The spelling hides most of this, so the IPA earns its keep here.

This page transcribes Brazilian Portuguese, the variety our main course teaches, in a careful general style that avoids the quirks of any single city. Where European Portuguese (EP) differs, the word is labelled BR and EP, and there is a side-by-side table further down.

The Portuguese alphabet page shows which letters spell each sound. If you have never read IPA before, start with Learn IPA, and the interactive charts show where every symbol lives in the mouth.

Oral vowels

Portuguese has seven oral vowels in stressed syllables. Spanish has five. The extra two come from splitting e and o into a closed and an open version.

Open and closed matter, because they change the word. avó /aˈvɔ/ is grandmother and avô /aˈvo/ is grandfather. One vowel is the whole difference.

Plurals can swap the vowel too. ovo /ˈovu/ (egg) becomes ovos /ˈɔvus/, and olho /ˈoʎu/ (eye) becomes olhos /ˈɔʎus/. Nobody enjoys this, and it is a few dozen common words rather than a rule you can apply blind (porco/porcos, jogo/jogos do it; bolo/bolos does not).

Unstressed vowels shrink

Outside the stressed syllable, Portuguese does what English does and weakens its vowels. In most Brazilian speech the word-final ones collapse to just three:

So the Spanish habit of saying every final vowel in full gives you away. Leite ends in "ee", not "eh", and livro ends in "oo", not "oh".

Before the stress, BR also tends to narrow e to /i/ and o to /u/ in casual speech: menino /meˈninu/ may come out as /miˈninu/. Both are normal.

An unstressed a before the stress, though, stays a full /a/ in BR: janela /ʒaˈnɛlɐ/ (window), casamento /kazaˈmẽtu/ (wedding). The word pages keep /ɐ/ for a final unstressed a and for a stressed a before m, n or nh. EP goes much further, as the European section below shows.

Nasal vowels

Portuguese has five nasal vowels, marked with a tilde in IPA. Air goes through the nose and the mouth at once, and you do not close the tongue to a full n afterwards.

The tilde does the same job on ã and õ.

A different case: a stressed vowel followed by m, n or nh at the start of the next syllable is nasalised in BR as well, but here the consonant is still pronounced in full. ano [ˈɐ̃nu] (year) and cama [ˈkɐ̃mɐ] (bed) both have a nasal first vowel and a real n or m after it. Our word pages write these /ˈɐnu/ and /ˈkɐmɐ/, because the nasalisation is automatic.

Nasal diphthongs

These are the sounds learners fear most, and the ones that make Portuguese sound like Portuguese. The nasal vowel glides into a nasalised semivowel.

Two things to keep in mind. First, ão is a single sound, so pão has one syllable and rhymes with nothing in English. Say "ow" with your nose and keep the mouth moving. Second, em at the end of a word is a diphthong, not a plain /ẽ/: bem ends in a nasal "y".

Oral diphthongs and glides

The oral diphthongs are easier. The semivowels are /j/ and /w/, and they pair with most vowels.

The semivowel is short and unstressed. Don't give it a full syllable: pai is one beat, not "pa-ee".

The consonants

Stops

Unlike Spanish, Brazilian Portuguese keeps b, d and g as full stops between vowels. There is no soft approximant to learn. That is one small mercy.

EP withdraws it: between vowels it softens them much as Spanish does, so cada is [ˈkɐðɐ] in Lisbon and [ˈkadɐ] in Brazil. The softening is automatic, so the European word pages still write /b d g/: cada /ˈkɐdɐ/.

Fricatives

Watch the single s. casa has a /z/ and passa has an /s/, and one written s versus two is the whole story. The ç only appears before a, o and u (aço) and always means /s/.

The letter x is the troublemaker. It is /ʃ/ in peixe and xadrez /ʃaˈdɾes/, /z/ in exame [eˈzɐ̃mi], /s/ in próximo /ˈpɾɔsimu/, and /ks/ in táxi /ˈtaksi/. Learn it word by word.

Palatalised t and d in Brazilian Portuguese

In most of Brazil, t and d before the vowel /i/ turn into affricates, /tʃ/ and /dʒ/. This includes the final unstressed -e that is pronounced /i/.

So dia starts like English "j" in "jeans" and tio starts like the "ch" of "cheese". It surprises every learner who arrives from Spanish.

A few regions keep a plain /t/ and /d/ here: much of the north-east (Recife says dia [ˈdiɐ]), and pockets of the south such as Curitiba, where final -e also stays [e], so leite is [ˈlejte]. In EP nobody affricates: tio /ˈtiu/, dia /ˈdiɐ/.

Nasals

Vinho is not "vin-yo". Press the middle of the tongue against the hard palate for one sound. In BR the vowel before nh is nasalised too, so amanhã comes out as [amɐ̃ˈɲɐ̃], and many Brazilians barely touch the palate at all, making nh a nasal "y" [j̃].

Liquids: l, lh and the vocalised l

In Brazil, an l at the end of a syllable is not an l at all. Brasil ends like "Brazeew", mal /ˈmaw/ rhymes with "cow", and futebol /futʃiˈbɔw/ ends in an open "o" plus "w". A learner who says a clear [l] sounds foreign, but is still understood.

In EP the same position gets a dark l, /ɫ/, like English "ball": sol /ˈsɔɫ/.

The r system

Portuguese writes r two ways and sounds it in two families. This is the single most regional feature of the whole language.

The tap /ɾ/ is a single flick of the tongue tip against the ridge behind the teeth, the same as the "t" in American "butter". It appears between vowels and after another consonant: caro /ˈkaɾu/, para /ˈpaɾɐ/, prato /ˈpɾatu/, obrigado /obɾiˈɡadu/.

The strong r /ʁ/ is spelled rr between vowels, or r at the start of a word or after l, n, s. It is the one that varies:

Our word pages write the strong r as /ʁ/ for all of these. The symbol stands for the phoneme and the table lists what your ear will actually hear. Pick any of the Brazilian versions and stay consistent. The English "h" is the easiest and perfectly understood.

Two minimal pairs show why the distinction matters: caro /ˈkaɾu/ (expensive) versus carro /ˈkaʁu/ (car), and era /ˈɛɾɐ/ (was) versus erra /ˈɛʁɐ/ (errs).

R at the end of a syllable

R at the end of a syllable is the third case: porta (door) and falar (to speak). Here Brazil splits widely.

And in the infinitive the final r very often drops: falar is heard as [faˈla].

EP keeps a tap: falar /fɐˈlaɾ/, porta /ˈpɔɾtɐ/.

Coda s

An s at the end of a syllable follows the same geography.

Both are standard. The Rio version is where the stereotype of Portuguese sounding like "shushing" comes from, and it is the norm in Lisbon and the rest of Portugal too.

Many Brazilians also slip a glide in before a final s after a stressed vowel: mês [ˈmejs], paz [ˈpajs], xadrez [ʃaˈdɾejs]. The word pages leave it out (/ˈmes/, /ˈpas/, /ʃaˈdɾes/) and write the /j/ only where the spelling has an i, as in mais /majs/.

European Portuguese: what changes

EP is not a different language, but a learner who has only heard Brazil will struggle with the speed. The vowels are what disappear. Unstressed vowels in EP are reduced, shortened or deleted, so the stressed syllables carry the whole word.

EP also keeps a vowel contrast that BR does not make at all: in the first person plural, falamos (we speak) is /fɐˈlɐmuʃ/ and falámos (we spoke) is /fɐˈlamuʃ/. The accent marks a different vowel. In Brazil both are written falamos and both are said [faˈlɐ̃mus], and context sorts it out. Even in Portugal the contrast is weak in parts of the north.

The alphabet page shows how each letter maps, and the GCSE track labels the European forms where they differ.

Stress and written accents

Portuguese stress is predictable enough that most words carry no accent at all.

• Words ending in a, e, o, as, es, os, am, em, ens stress the second-to-last syllable: casa /ˈkazɐ/, falam /ˈfalɐ̃w̃/, homem /ˈɔmẽj̃/.
• Words ending in anything else (i, is, u, us, l, r, z, ã, ão, im, um, and most consonants) stress the last syllable: Brasil /bɾaˈziw/, papel /paˈpɛw/, animal /aniˈmaw/, irmã /iʁˈmɐ̃/.
• Whatever breaks the pattern gets an accent: país /paˈis/ (country) against pais /ˈpajs/ (parents).

The accents have two jobs: marking the stressed syllable, and telling you which vowel it is.

Intonation is melodic. Statements fall at the end, yes/no questions rise, and Brazilian speech sings more than most learners expect. The stress mark, written /ˈ/ before the syllable in IPA, tells you where the peak goes.

The short version

The sounds that most trip English and Spanish speakers, in order of how often they come up:

1. Nasal vowels and ão: pão, bom, mãe.
2. Open and closed e and o: avó versus avô.
3. Weak final vowels: leite /ˈlejtʃi/, not /ˈlejte/.
4. t and d turning into /tʃ/ and /dʒ/ before /i/ in BR: dia, tio.
5. The vocalised l: Brasil ends in "w".
6. The two rs: caro versus carro.

Work through these and the rest follows. To go from reading the symbols to hearing them, the Learn IPA course is the next stop, and the alphabet page covers the spelling rules that these sounds sit behind.