Learn European Portuguese

This is the second part of this European Portuguese Pronunciation Tutorial, following the first part we explained consonant pronunciation.

Vowels are the most complex part of Portuguese pronunciation. Like English, Portuguese is a stress-timed language and has a large vowel inventory. This means that stressed syllables are pronounced more prominently, while unstressed syllables are shorter and their vowels are usually reduced.

The good news is that, most of the time, there is little ambiguity. By knowing the rules, you can read Portuguese with reasonably accurate pronunciation.

In this tutorial, I'll start with the most general rules - those that apply most of the time - and then refine them for specific situations.

First, let's get to know the vowels:

Plain vowels:

Nasal vowels:

As you can see, we essentially have the five basic vowels, with open and closed versions of A, E, and O, a mute version of E, and a nasal version of all five basic vowels based on their closed forms.

Word Stress - Accentuation Rules

Since vowel pronunciation depends heavily on stress, we first need to be able to identify the stressed syllable.

Stress is marked by diacritical marks, which we call accents in Portuguese. These marks indicate not only stress but also vowel quality (open, closed, or nasal).

The acute accent (´) marks an open stressed vowel, while the circumflex accent (^) marks a closed stressed vowel. The tilde (~) marks a nasal vowel and makes it stressed unless another accent is already present in the word.

Examples:

Since marking every word with an accent would be impractical, there are rules for predicting the stressed syllable. Therefore, only stressed syllables that cannot be predicted by these rules need an accent.

The rules for predicting stress are based on the last letter of the word, ignoring final S, M, and NS:

Nasal Vowel Pronunciation

Any vowel with a tilde or followed by N/M at the end of the syllable will be nasal.

There are only five nasal vowels, and they always correspond to the vowel letter.

The only exception is words ending in AM and EM, which become nasal diphthongs:

Plain Vowel Pronunciation

This is the general rule:

Now a little more complete:

There is another important case. Both the Closed E and I sounds undergo dissimilation when they are next to palatal sounds.

In the case of Closed E /e/, when it is followed by a palatal consonant or the vowel sound I, it becomes a falling diphthong consisting of Closed A and the semivowel I: /ɐj/.

In the case of I, including realizations of E as I, it becomes a Mute E.

Unlike the dissimilation of E, which always occurs, the dissimilation of I is an ongoing process. It only occurs in unstressed syllables and is more common in fast speech. Some words are more likely to undergo this process, while in others it may never occur.

Finally, U may be silent after a Q or G:

Diphtongs

Once you apply the previous rules, unstressed I and U vowel sounds may become semivowels and form diphthongs when they occur next to another vowel. Falling diphthongs are mandatory whenever possible.

There is no diphthong if the vowel that would become the semivowel is followed by a consonant (except S) in the same syllable.

And that's it! You should now have a good idea of how written Portuguese sounds.

Watch some subtitled videos to see all of this in practice! ⇨

Exercises:

Vowel Exercise 1: pay attention to the stressed syllables:

Vowel Exercise 2: pay attention to the vowel sounds:

Continue to the videos page! ⇨