🇧🇷 Portuguese Pronunciation

Practice portuguese pronunciation using Web Speech API. Record yourself, get instant feedback on accuracy, fluency, and confidence.

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💡 Portuguese Pronunciation Tips

🎤 Nasal Vowels

Portuguese uses nasal vowels and distinctive nasal consonants.

🗣️ R Sounds

Brazilian Portuguese "r" is guttural, different from Spanish.

📝 Daily Practice

Practice with native speakers to master rhythm.

Brazilian Portuguese: what to expect

Portuguese has a larger vowel inventory than Spanish and a set of nasal vowels that English lacks entirely. It is also a language where unstressed vowels reduce substantially, which makes it sound quite different from Spanish despite the close relationship on paper. The notes below describe Brazilian Portuguese; European Portuguese reduces vowels even more heavily.

The rules that change the most words

Final unstressed o is /u/. Obrigado ends in an oo sound; domingo is /doˈmĩɡu/. This single rule affects thousands of words.
Final unstressed e is /i/. Noite sounds like NOY-chee, cidade like see-DAH-jee.
de and te become /dʒi/ and /tʃi/. This follows from the rule above: once the e is an i, the consonant palatalises. Verdade ends in -jee, gente in -chee.
Word-initial and doubled r is /h/. Rio begins with an English h sound, and carro has one in the middle. A single r between vowels is a tap: caro.
Final -l becomes /w/. Brasil ends in a w sound, and Portugal likewise.
lh and nh are single palatal sounds: filho, manhã.

Nasal vowels

Portuguese nasalises vowels marked with a tilde (ã, õ) and vowels before m or n at the end of a syllable. As in French, the nasal consonant itself is not pronounced — the vowel carries the nasality.

não /nɐ̃w̃/ — a nasal diphthong, the most characteristic sound in the language
mãe /mɐ̃j̃/, pão /pɐ̃w̃/, irmão /iʁˈmɐ̃w̃/
bem /bẽj̃/, sim /sĩ/, bom /bõ/

Open and closed vowels

Portuguese distinguishes open and closed e and o, and the difference can change meaning. The written accents tell you which: é and ó are open (/ɛ/, /ɔ/), while ê and ô are closed (/e/, /o/). Compare avô (grandfather) with avó (grandmother) — a distinction that matters in ordinary conversation.

Stress

The default is the second-to-last syllable. Words ending in -i, -u, -l, -r, -z or a nasal diphthong take stress on the last syllable instead. Anything that breaks these patterns carries a written accent, so like Spanish, Portuguese stress is fully predictable from the written form.

In-depth Portuguese guides

Each guide covers one part of the sound system in detail, with audio examples and a practice drill.