Portuguese pronunciation is known as very difficult. It's complex indeed, but the good news are: it's not anarchic.
With the rules presented in this tutorial you will be able to know how written Portuguese actually sounds like.
If you already know consonant pronunciation, you can jump to vowel pronunciation.
If you already know all this, and just want to improve your European Portuguese accent, you can see our subtitled video examples.
Let's begin with the basics:
| Letter | IPA | Portuguese Example | English Approximation |
|---|---|---|---|
| B | /b/ | banana | banana |
| D | /d/ | dose | dose |
| F | /f/ | face | face |
| L | /l/ | lista | list |
| M | /m/ | manual | manual |
| N | /n/ | normal | normal |
| P | /p/ | parte | part |
| Q | /k/ | qualidade | quality |
| S | /s/ | social | social |
| Z | /z/ | zebra | zebra |
| T | /t/ | táxi | taxi |
| V | /v/ | visita | visit |
These were really easy, right?
Let's continue!
| Letter | Followed By | IPA | Portuguese Example | English Approximation |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| C | A, O or U | /k/ | cultura | culture |
| E or I | /s/ | centro | centre | |
| Ç | - | /s/ | serviço | service |
| G | A, O or U | /g/ | gasolina | gasoline |
| E or I | /ʒ/ | género | genre (ZH) | |
| J | - | /ʒ/ | Jaime | Jacques (ZH) |
| H | Word beginning | Silent | hora | hour |
| R | Word beginning | /ʁ/ | recente | (Guttural R) |
| Otherwise | /ɾ/ | central | city (AE) |
Now lets see the digraphs:
| Letter | IPA | Portuguese Example | English Approximation |
|---|---|---|---|
| CH | /ʃ/ | charada | charade (SH) |
| LH | /ʎ/ | brilhante | brilliant |
| NH | /ɲ/ | canhão | canyon |
| RR | /ʁ/ | correto | (Guttural R) |
| SS | /s/ | clássico | classic |
Coda consonants:
Some consonants will have a different sound when they are at the end of a syllable. This is the case of M, N, S and Z.
| Letter | IPA | Portuguese Example | |
|---|---|---|---|
| M | Silent | importante | Precedent vowel becomes nasal |
| N | Silent | contacto |
Followed by unvoiced consonant (c, ç, ch, f, p, q, s, t) or pause:
| Letter | IPA | Portuguese Example | English Approximation |
|---|---|---|---|
| S | /ʃ/ | Inglês | English |
| Z | faz três |
Followed by voiced consonant (b, d, g, j, l, lh, m, n, nh, r, rr, v, z):
| Letter | IPA | Portuguese Example | English Approximation |
|---|---|---|---|
| S | /ʒ/ | Islândia | casual (ZH) |
| Z | felizmente | seizure (ZH) |
Between vowels:
| Letter | IPA | Portuguese Example | English Approximation |
|---|---|---|---|
| S | /z/ | visita | visit |
| Z | feliz aniversário | lazy |
Any consonant other than these (M, N, S, Z) won't change. Lets continue.
The sounds of X:
I left out X to the end on purpose. This is the only ambiguous consonant in Portuguese:
| Letter | Rule | IPA | Portuguese Example | English Approximation |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| X | Word beginning | /ʃ/ | xampô | shampoo |
| After diphtong | caixa | |||
| After ME | mexicano | |||
| After EN | enxame |
At de end of syllables it will follow the same rules applied to S and Z.
In other cases it may have one of the following sounds:
| Letter | IPA | Portuguese Example | English Approximation |
|---|---|---|---|
| X | /ʃ/ | luxúria | shop |
| /s/ | máximo | social | |
| /z/ | existe | xylophone | |
| /ks/ | táxi | taxi | |
| /gz/ | hexadecimal | example |
This is it. We've seen all consonant sounds.
Click here to continue to the second part of this tutorial: vowel pronunciation. ⇨
Exercise: pay attention how the consonants sound:
Continue to the second part of this tutorial: vowel pronunciation. ⇨
