Breaking Down Portuguese Vowels: A and E

If you’ve ever heard Caetano Veloso’s beautiful bossa nova songs or Mariza’s soulful fado tunes, you may have realised that there is something very special about the quality of vowels in Portuguese. Is it the way they stress words? Is it the way they slowly release the air at the end of words? In our last blog, we brought you an introduction to Portuguese vowels. This month, we are going to take a deep dive into each vowel in two different blogs covering letters A-E, and I-O-U respectively.

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So let’s get started. Today we are going to break down the first two vowels in the Portuguese alphabet: A and E. Yes, only two letters full of phonetic possibilities!

A

Let’s start with the first letter in the Portuguese alphabet.

Just like in English, Portuguese A has several possible pronunciations.

If it doesn’t have an accent mark, it is a tense vowel with a smiley sound to it. Yes, almost exactly like the “a” in “bad”.

But be careful. If A is in final position (i.e., at the end of a word) its pronunciation is more similar to the U in “cup”.

mapa — map

lata — can

tense, smiley A

short, closed A

Does your Á have a rising accent mark? This mark indicates a darker sound, similar to the one in words like “father” or “bar”. The only difference is that, in Portuguese, you shouldn’t lower your jaw as much as you would to say “bar”.

Say these words trying to imitate the A from the word “bar”, but without moving your jaw!

máquina — machine

pátio — yard

pássaro — bird

The Portuguese alphabet, as you are about to see, has many different stress marks for its five vowels.

If the letter  has a circumflex stress mark (the one that looks like a roof), it means it should be pronounced as a closed vowel, as in “cup”. Yes, even if it’s not at the end of the word! This is usually the case when A is followed by M or N.

To practice the  sound, say these words trying to pronounce this letter like the U in “cup”.

mância — fortune-telling

semântica — semantics/meaning

câmera — camera

One of the things that make the Portuguese language so special is its nasal sound, which results from releasing the air involved in the pronunciation of certain sounds through your nose.

The letter A, for example, is always nasal whenever it is followed by an M or an N, as in the examples above. But it can also be nasal elsewhere. To signal that A has a nasal release in other phonetic environments, Portuguese speakers write a ’tilde’ stress mark: Ã.

rã — frog

ação — action

leião — lion

Finally, The letter À may also take a falling stress mark. This means that two A’s that appear one after the other have been combined to produce a single sound. For example, instead of saying a aquela (“at that”), Portuguese people omit the first sound and just say àquela.

E

This letter may be one of the most straightforward ones in English, but it is actually one of the most unpredictable vowels in the Portuguese alphabet.

Since the pronunciation of E varies depending on what region of Portugal or Brazil you are visiting, we are going to focus on the “standard” variety, which is the one you would find in Lisbon.

When the letter E is unstressed (i.e., when it appears in a weak syllable) and it is at the end of a word, it sounds like the “ee” in “see”.

Try saying these words with that tip in mind:

saudade — longing

verdade — truth

sociedade — society

This is also the case for the conjunction e (“and”), and when an unstressed E is followed by an S at the end of the word. In both cases, the E is pronounced, again, like the long /i/ sound in “tree”.

Practice saying the following words:

ingredientes — ingredients

sobreviventes — survivors

cães — dogs

So, is E always long?

No! When it appears at the beginning of a word, especially before an S or an X, E is pronounced as a short vowel, not unlike the /i/ sound in “party” or “cosy.”

esporte — the sport

estudante — student

extra — extra

Besides, Portuguese E is not always pronounced like an /i/. In fact, its most common pronunciation is that of an open /e/ sound, like the one in “egg” or “bet”.

a festa — the party

rede — a net

a estrela — the star

If the É has a rising accent, it always has this open pronunciation, just like the ones we just mentioned:

café — coffee

sacré — sacred

But things don’t end here. As we said before, mastering the E letter is one of the biggest challenges of studying the alphabet in Portuguese!

In some contexts, E can also be pronounced like the first element in the diphthong “pain”.

manteiga — butter

o feijão — beans

Also, when it appears before an M or an N, E can have a nasal pronunciation.

menta —mint

bem — well

Last but not least, when E is followed by a U, it can have two different pronunciations. If the combination is EU, without a stress mark, the two letters are articulated separately and E has an open quality, like the English E in “egg”.

Europa — Europe

euforia — euforia

However, if the combination is ÉU with the rising accent, E is pronounced like /e/ element in the word “pain”, and the U sounds like an O.

Say these words trying to say /eo/ instead of /eu/. (Remember, the /e/ part is similar to the first vocalic element in the word “main”)

chapéu — hat

curvéu  — arch

So, there you go. By mastering the first two vowels in the Portuguese alphabet (which happen to be the most common sounds in the language!), you will be able to give your sentences that unique musicality that makes Portuguese one of the most beautiful-sounding languages on Earth.

Now that you know how to pronounce A and E depending on their phonological context and diacritic marks, why don’t you practice what you’ve learned by singing along to a Portuguese song?

Is there any other Portuguese song that you really love? Let us know in our social media.

While you wait for our blog post on vowels I, O, and U, why not take a few lessons with a native Portuguese teacher to start working on your current skills?

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