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Chapter One - Portuguese Pronunciation

Pronunciation in Portuguese is very consistent. Unlike English, each letter usually only makes one sound, and rarely strays from the rules. The following chart gives a letter(s) a phonetic example of the sound it makes, and a close approximation in English. This is followed by and example of common usage in Portuguese. Keep in mind that these are approximations, and your understanding of pronunciation will grow as you gain experience speaking.

	Phonetic	English Approximation	Portuguese Usage
a	ah	call	casa
b	b	big	bolo
c (before "e" or "i")	ss	circle	certo
c (any other time)	k	cake	calor
ch	sh	champagne	chegar
ç	ss	NA	praça
d (before a terminal "e" or any "i")	j	cage	verdade
d (any other time)	d	dog	dor
e	eh	egg	levar
f	f	front	frente
g (before "e" or "i")	zh	garage	ginga
g (any other time)	g	guess	golpe
h (as the first letter in a word)	(no sound)	NA	hoje
i	ee	sing	sim
j	zh	azure	jantar
l	l	low	lavar
lh	(l y)	will you	mulher
m	m	middle	meio
n	n	never	nunca
o	oh	open	obrigado
p	p	point	pronto
qu	k	kick	quente
r (at the beginning of a word)	h	hat	roda
r (between two vowels)	d	steady	capoeira
r (in any other case)	r	read	chutar
rr	h	mayhem	ferro
s (between two vowels)	z	please	mesa
s (in any other case)	ss	some	sentar
t (before a terminal "e" or any "i")	ch	branch	bate
t (any other case)	t	take	ter
u	oo	blue	mudar
v	v	very	vento
x	sh	dish	mexer
z	z	zebra	zangado
ão	oun (nasal)	sound	ratão

There are a few more important cases you should memorize. If a word ends with an "m" or "n" that is preceded by a vowel, the last letter is not pronounced and the vowel is nasalized. It sounds very similar to the "ão" in the list above. As you continue to learn Portuguese you will see that there are a few more pronunciations you will need to be familiar with. There are also several cases when you stray from the rules. But, even the exceptions to the rules are better governed by rules themselves than English.

In Portuguese words with more than one syllable, the second to last syllable (penultimate syllable) carries the emphasis. For example, the word "anda" means "walk" and is pronounced "AHN-dah" with emphasis on the penultimate syllable.

There are two exceptions to this rule. If the word has an accent mark, the syllable with the accent mark is emphasized. If the word ends with the letters "l","z", or "r", or the last vowel in the word is "u" or "i" then the last syllable is emphasized. This means that the word "andar" is pronounced more like "ahn-DAH" moving the emphasis to the last syllable. This second exception is often referred to as the "luzir" (loser) rule, and is a good way to help yourself remember how it works.

In Portuguese there are two genders. All nouns are either masculine (o) or feminine (a). We'll talk more about this in Chapter two, but for now all nouns in the vocabulary lists will be written with their definite article (the) to show the gender. As you study your vocabulary, see if you can notice any patterns that help indicate the gender of the object.

Let's put these rules to work in our first vocabulary lesson.

Body Parts and Counting to 10

a cabeça	the head
o pescoço	the neck
o peito	the chest
o braço	the arm
a mão	the hand
o cotovelo	the elbow
a cintura	the waist
a perna	the leg
o joelho	the knee
o pé	the foot
a canela	the shin
o pulso	the wrist
a coxa	the thigh
o tornozelo	the ankle
o dedo	the finger
o dedo do pé	the toe
a junta	the joint
um (uma)	one
dois (duas)	two
três	three
quatro	four
cinco	five
seis	six
sete	seven
oito	eight
nove	nine
dez	ten

Read through this lesson several times, and then make sure you memorize all of the vocabulary given. When you feel like you're ready to go on try the workbook section of this chapter.

Click Here to try the workbook assignment