Top 11 Spanish-to-Portuguese Pronunciation Differences

This post serves as a companion guide to our YouTube video, Top 11 Spanish-to-Portuguese Pronunciation Differences.

For English speakers who are familiar with Spanish and want to learn Brazilian Portuguese, going through these Top 11 Tips will help you understand 90% of the pronunciation differences between the two languages. One by one we explain each difference and have Gláuber from Brazil read a list of examples. In the YouTube video you can hear Zitely from Mexico also read the Spanish translation of each word for comparison, but here I just list the Portuguese words:

1) Five new letters in Portuguese: ã, õ, ê, ô, and ç

• ã is a nasal vowel: lã
• õ is a nasal vowel: televisões
• ê is an open vowel: Por quê?
• ô is an open vowel: colônia
• ç sounds like an s: açúcar

2) Final position -e and -o

• Final -e sounds like "ee" as in "bee": telefone, nome
• Final -o sounds like "oo" as in "too": livro, como

3) Nasalized vowels ã and õ

• ã sounds like plugging your nose and saying "ahng": não, coração, irmã
• õ sounds like plugging your nose and saying "ohng": corações, lições

4) Nasalized vowels before a final -m/-n in a word/syllable

• vowel + m sounds like vowel + ng (nasal): tem, sim, som, um hotel
• vowel + n sounds like vowel + ng (nasal): quanto, convento, sinto, fonte, assunto, muito

5) g-, d-, and t- before -i or -e

• g before i or any e sounds like "zh" as in "treasure": gente, longe, gigante, giz
• d before i or final e sounds like "j" as in "judge": cidade, pode, dia, dizer
• d before non-final e sounds like "d" as in "dip": dez
• t before i or final e sounds like "ch" as in "cheat": sete, diamante, tio, tipo
• t before non-final e sounds like "t" as in "tip": tempo

6) r and rr

• r at beginning of word or beginning of post-consonant syllable sounds like "h" as in "hurt": rã, regra, honra, Israel, Rio de Janeiro
• rr always sounds like "h" as in "hurt": carro, cachorro

7) Final -l in a word/syllable always has a "w" sound

• mal, falta, legal, animal
• papel, túnel
• mil, barril, Brasil
• sol, espanhol, gol
• azul, última, multicultural

8) lh and nh

• lh sounds like the "lli" of "million": julho, mulher, trabalhar, lhe
• nh soundl like the "ni" of "onion": banho, senhor, amanhã, tenho, vinho

9) j always sounds like "zh" as in "treasure"

• já, jota, traje, laranja

10) ch always sounds like a soft "sh" as in "show"

• China, cheque, chegar, marchar

11) v always sounds like "v" as in "vote"

• vez, viajar, lavar, palavra

Check back in the future for more videos about the key ways that Brazilian Portuguese differs from Spanish, including the most important vocabulary differences and the most important grammar differences!

And here are some other great resources for English-speaking Spanish speakers who want to learn Brazilian Portuguese:

Pois não: an excellent textbook with many cultural lessons and an audio companion

Tá falado: a podcast out of the University of Texas with pdfs of all example conversations

Pimsleur: the best strictly Portuguese language tool I have ever used; audio-based