Lesson 3: Pronunciation part 1(Vowels and diphtongs)

Some say that Portuguese pronunciation is among the most difficult to learn of Romance languages. It does have many rules, but there are very few exceptions. Below is a table of the Portuguese phonetic sounds. The actual alphabet is just like in English but without k, w, and y, and with the addition of ç, ã, and õ.

• VOWELS ( AND DIPHTHONGS )

There is a subtle difference between the pronunciation of open and closed vowels (whether they receive the accent of a word, or if they have the ´, ^, or ` accent), however their difference is not so great that it would cause confusion when spoken, i know plenty of people ( including myself ) who even use these stress marks uncorrectly on some occasions. I have left them out for the benefit of beginning learners. Moreover, learners are encouraged to listen to the language to learn the pronunciation well. Below is only a reference for those who have no immediate access to the spoken language.

But as i've mentioned before, music and even movies are a good source of learning if you don't live in a Portuguese-speaking country.

Letter - Portuguese letter - English approximations
_
(a ) stressed - água ( water ) - ah!
(a) unstressed - água ( water ) - about
_
(e) stressed - sete ( seven ) - send
(e) unstressed - sete ( seven ) - make
_
(i) - vivo ( alive, lively ) - meet
_
(o) stressed - povo ( people ) - modern
(o) unstressed - povo ( people ) - look
_
(u) - Português ( Portuguese ) - mood

Usually the letters (o) and (a) have a different phonology depending its location, whether at the beginning or end of a word. Whenever the word ends with an (a), don't forget to pronounce it like the a in the english word about. If the word ends with an (o), simply pronounce it like a oo, phonetically something like cool. This is the same for both varieties of spoken portuguese. There is one particular aspect of Brazilian Portuguese not featured in its European variety which is, the way (e) is pronounced at the end of a word. A word like pente(comb), would sound Pent in European Portuguese but in the Brazilian variety would sound like Pent-chee.

There are a few rules to follow when you stress words. But like most theories is a bit difficult to understand, the easiest way to understand is to listen and talk. Don't be afraid to make mistakes, you only get better by dealing with them.

I will explain those rules with more detail later after i cover the consonants part.