Portuguese pronunciation: 37 minimal pairs to listen to

This list is shorter than the usual ones because it follows a single rule: it contains only the distinctions English does not have. A difference your own language already makes costs no effort; the ones it does not make are the ones worth practising.

That is why each of the 6 groups first says what an English speaker does instead. That is the real information; the words below are the evidence. There is no phonetic script here: if you know the symbols, you do not need this page, and if you do not, they tell you nothing.

What happens here: Portuguese has two stressed o sounds and two stressed e sounds, and each pair keeps words apart. The open ó is close to the vowel of « law », only shorter; the open é is close to the e of « bed », with the mouth a little wider. The closed vowels are where an English speaker goes wrong. A closed ô is a pure o: the lips round and then hold still. English has no such vowel, so the speaker reaches for the o of « go », which glides towards a u, and what comes out matches neither avô nor avó. The closed ê has the same trap with the vowel of « day », which glides towards an i. The remedy is to start the vowel and move nothing until it ends. Spelling helps only in some words: a circumflex means closed, an acute accent means open, and everywhere else the vowel has to be learnt with the word.

What happens here: A vowel with a tilde (ã, õ), or followed by m or n at the end of a syllable, is nasal: the air leaves through nose and mouth together, and the m or n is not pronounced as a consonant of its own. English has no nasal vowels as separate sounds, so an English speaker does what the spelling suggests and closes the vowel with a consonant: sim comes out as « seem » or « sing », with the lips or the back of the tongue shutting the sound off. In sim the lips stay apart and the tongue touches nothing; the i simply carries on through the nose. A useful starting point is that English already nasalises a vowel before n or ng: say « sing » and stop just before the tongue closes. The endings -ão and -am need particular care. They do not start with the a of « cow » but with a darker vowel, nearer the one in « cup », and mão said like « Mao » turns into mau.

What happens here: Between two vowels a single r is one quick tap of the tongue tip against the ridge behind the upper teeth. British English makes that movement, just never as an r: it is close to the t many Americans say in « water » or « better », and many Scottish speakers use it as their r. rr, and any r at the start of a word, is a different sound altogether in Portugal: a rasping sound made far back in the mouth, similar to the r of French. In some regions and among some older speakers it is still a rolled tongue-tip r, and that is understood too. An English speaker uses the smooth English r for both, and the difference between caro and carro is gone. The second British habit does as much damage: an r after a vowel is not pronounced at all, as in « car » and « park », so mar and porta lose theirs. In Portuguese every written r is sounded, and at the end of a syllable it is the tap.

What happens here: nh sounds roughly like the ny of « canyon », and lh like the lli of « million ». The difference is that in English these are two sounds in a row, an n or an l followed by a y, while in Portuguese each is a single sound: the middle of the tongue presses flat against the roof of the mouth, and the n or the l is made there, with no separate y after it. Said the English way, filho becomes « feel-yoo »; it is understood, but it marks the speaker at once. The spelling adds a trap of its own. An h is never pronounced in Portuguese; after l and n it is only a marker, and a reader who tries to breathe it out has made the word longer, not clearer. The contrast carries meaning: mala is a suitcase and malha knitted fabric, sono is sleep and sonho a dream.

What happens here: The two basic sounds are familiar: the s of « sip » and the z of « zip ». What an English reader has to learn is which spelling gives which. A single s between two vowels is always the z sound, as in « easy »; ss and ç are always the s of « sip »; z is a z; and an s at the start of a word is always an s. So far English habits mostly fit. The real novelty is the end of the syllable. There, in Portugal, s and z become the sh of « ship » before a voiceless consonant or a pause, and the sound in the middle of « measure » before a voiced one: as portas sounds like « ash portash », and mesmo has the sound of « measure » in its middle. Before a vowel at the start of the next word it is a plain z again, as in os amigos. None of these sounds is hard for an English speaker to make; what takes time is recognising a word that is written with an s and heard with sh.

What happens here: The rule is short. A word ending in a, e or o, with or without an s after it, or in -am, -em or -ens, is stressed on the second-to-last syllable; any other word is stressed on the last, including words in -i, -u, -ão, -l, -r and -z. A written accent overrides the rule and marks the stressed syllable. English has neither such a rule nor such marks, so an English speaker tends to stress a Portuguese word where its English relative is stressed: secretaria on the first syllable, like « secretary ». In European Portuguese the stress matters more than in English, because unstressed vowels shrink so far that some vanish: telefone can sound like « tl-FON ». English weakens its unstressed vowels too, so the habit itself is familiar; Portuguese simply goes further. The result is that a misplaced stress makes the wrong syllable audible and swallows the right one, and esta, « this », turns into está, « is ».