Your Ultimate Portuguese Pronunciation Guide

Portuguese Pronunciation

Almost every sound in Portuguese also exists in English. Therefore, if you’re a native speaker of English, then, in a sense, you may have already mastered Portuguese pronunciation! Even the Portuguese sounds that sometimes do pose a slight amount of difficulty are not nearly as difficult as some of the unique sounds in some other language. Plus, another factor that makes learning to speak this language a lot easier, at least for English speakers, is the fact that the two languages use completely identical alphabets. Therefore, we’re going to take a look at how Portuguese vowels are pronounced, and then we’ll take a look at Portuguese consonants.

Given the fact that we’ve already explained that the Portuguese alphabet is identical to the English one, it’s really no surprise that Portuguese features the same five vowels as English. Therefore, a logical first step to learning Portuguese pronunciation would be to learn to pronounce its vowel sounds. Fortunately, Portuguese actually has fewer vowel sounds than English. Whereas English has two (long and short) or more sounds for each of its five vowels, Portuguese only has one sound for each of them. Here’s the breakdown:

• “A” is pronounced as it would be in the English word “Father.”

• “E” is pronounced as it would be in the English word “Get.”

• “I” is pronounced as it would be in the English word “Ski.”

• “O” is pronounced as it would be in the English word “Soap.”

• “U” is pronounced as it would be in the English word “Flu.”

When it comes to consonants in Portuguese pronunciation, the ways in which they are combined represent the areas where you should focus your attention. In fact, some of these consonant combinations represent some of the sounds which we mentioned before, that can be among the most difficult sounds to reproduce in the entire language. That’s the bad news. The good news, of course, is that once you’ve mastered the pronunciation of these particular sounds, you’ve pretty much mastered the pronunciation of the entire language. Here’s a breakdown of those:

• “LY” is pronounced as they would be in the English phrase “Will ye?”

• “NH” is pronounced as they would be in the English word “Lasagna.”

• An “R” makes a “D” sound, and a double “R” makes an “H” sound.

These sounds may be difficult for you to reproduce at first, but you will master them in time if you keep practicing them long enough.

1) Use voice recording tools to perfect your pronunciation

PortuguesePod101 has plenty of resources to help you with your Portuguese pronunciation, so be sure to make thorough use of our recordings with native Portuguese speakers. These are available not only to demonstrate to you how you should pronounce Portuguese vocabulary, but also sentences and dialogues. Watch and listen to these over and over again to train your ear, and watch the teacher’s mouth as she speaks in the video lessons. Then, copy the speech as best you can. Later, you can record yourself to hear if you sound like a native speaker and compare yourself with native speakers. Great for self-motivation.

2) Practice in front of the mirror.

And see that you’re copying the correct lip and mouth movements.

3) Use our PortuguesePod101 dictionary!

Use the Portuguese dictionary provided by PortuguesePod101 to look up words and listen to the audio pronunciation. This will go a long way towards giving you an idea of how to pronounce a word or letter correctly.

4) Train your ear to the language!

Make an effort to often listen to Portuguese music and recorded books, and watch plenty of Portuguese movies and/or TV shows in Portuguese. This will train your ear to the language, and you’ll be surprised how quickly you pick up the accent. Remember, this is the way we learned to speak when we were young - mostly by listening to the adults talking, and repeating what they say!

5) Practice, practice, practice…

Repetition of the same thing may be boring, but in learning a new language, you’re creating new pathways in your brain. For these to remain and become habitual, you will need to repeat the correct pronunciation often.

6) Make friends with a native Portuguese speaker.

Don’t be shy to address them in Portuguese! Ask them to correct you when you make a pronunciation mistake - this is a wonderful way to practice and learn the language first-hand, and also to make new friends.

7) Practice your pronunciation with your Portuguese teacher!

If you’re a serious student and don’t know where to meet native Portuguese speakers, consider investing in PortuguesePod101’s Premium PLUS plan. This means you will have your own native Portuguese teacher available to practice your pronunciation with, and much more! Send recordings of yourself speaking Portuguese and get feedback from your Portuguese teacher.