The Nasal Vowels
Portuguese is most known for its abundance of nasal vowels. Because there are few instances of vowel nasalization in English, mastering the nasal vowels is challenging for English speakers. The first step of nasal vowel mastery is knowing what exactly a nasal vowel is.
What is a Nasal Vowel?
If you recall, a vowel sound is when completely open vocal tract with no air obstruction at any point. If there is air obstruction, then by definition its a consonant sound).
For oral vowels like the those of English, 100% of that unobstructed air is leaving through your mouth.
To make these sounds, you have to contract a muscle called the "velum." When you contract the velum upward, you temporarily block your nasal passage, so that all the air coming up from your lungs is leaving your mouth.
The velum actually moves in two directions. If you contract the muscle downward, you completely block the oral passage so that all the air coming up from your lungs is leaving through your nose. The result is a humming sound. Note: the humming sound is NOT the same thing as a nasal vowel.
For oral vowels like the those of English, 100% of that unobstructed air is leaving through your mouth.
To make these sounds, you have to contract a muscle called the "velum." When you contract the velum upward, you temporarily block your nasal passage, so that all the air coming up from your lungs is leaving your mouth.
The velum actually moves in two directions. If you contract the muscle downward, you completely block the oral passage so that all the air coming up from your lungs is leaving through your nose. The result is a humming sound. Note: the humming sound is NOT the same thing as a nasal vowel.
A nasal vowel is when air passes through BOTH the mouth AND the nose.
To achieve this effect, your velum muscle has to be completely relaxed.
To achieve this effect, your velum muscle has to be completely relaxed.
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The interactive vowel chart to the right is from The Phonetics & Phonology website of The University of Minas Gerais in Brazil. When you click a sound, the animated speech organ moves to illustrate what is happening in the mouth. If you click any of the oral vowel sounds reviewed in the last section (under "Orais") you will notice that the green flap will extend back to touch the back of the throat. This is the velum extending downwards to block the nasal passage. If you click any of the nasal vowels (under "Nasais"), you will notice that this green flap does not move at all. When the green flap is not moving (i.e. relaxed), the air can pass freely through BOTH the nasal AND oral passages. |
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Nasal Awareness & Control
It's not enough to know what a nasal vowel is; you have to be able to feel it. To help you feel it, the first set of drills in Nasal Bootcamp are for Nasal Awareness. Before moving onto the first lesson, you will need to go through these drills so that you are aware of what nasal vowels feel like in your speech organ.
The main difficulty in Portuguese is not the nasal vowels themselves but rather the rapid alternation between nasal and oral vowels in normal speech.
Alternating back and forth means contracting and relaxing your velar muscle with speed and precision. This takes a degree of control that you currently do not have as an English speaker. To help you build this control, I have created a series of Nasal Control Drills, which can also be found in the Nasal Bootcamp.
If you practice these drills consistently you can master the nasal vowel sounds in Portuguese in less than 1 week.
You will feel silly performing these drills, but if you practice them consistently you will save yourself A LOT of trouble down the line. The vast majority of Portuguese learners never learn these sounds, and thus speak with a thick accent. So you can either sound silly to yourself for a week doing nasal drills privately in your room, or you can sound silly to Native Portuguese speakers forever when trying to converse with them.
The main difficulty in Portuguese is not the nasal vowels themselves but rather the rapid alternation between nasal and oral vowels in normal speech.
Alternating back and forth means contracting and relaxing your velar muscle with speed and precision. This takes a degree of control that you currently do not have as an English speaker. To help you build this control, I have created a series of Nasal Control Drills, which can also be found in the Nasal Bootcamp.
If you practice these drills consistently you can master the nasal vowel sounds in Portuguese in less than 1 week.
You will feel silly performing these drills, but if you practice them consistently you will save yourself A LOT of trouble down the line. The vast majority of Portuguese learners never learn these sounds, and thus speak with a thick accent. So you can either sound silly to yourself for a week doing nasal drills privately in your room, or you can sound silly to Native Portuguese speakers forever when trying to converse with them.
The Nasal - Oral Vowel Pairs
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/ĩ/ - /i/
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Here the speaker alternates between the nasal vowel and its oral equal (starting with the oral equal). Remember, the only physical movement in the speaker's mouth when alternating is in the relaxing/contracting of the velar muscle.
So when you mimic these sounds, you should make sure that NOTHING is moving in your mouth (tongue, lips, etc.) when switching between a nasal sound and its oral equal.
So when you mimic these sounds, you should make sure that NOTHING is moving in your mouth (tongue, lips, etc.) when switching between a nasal sound and its oral equal.
/i/ - /ĩ/ |
/e/ - /ẽ/ |
/ɐ/ - /ɐ̃/ |
/o/ - /õ/ |
/u/ - /ũ/ |
When hearing these sounds, it might sound to you like there is an /n/ or /m/ somewhere. This is because /n/ and /m/ are the main nasal sounds in English, so your brain thinks about them whenever you hear that nasal sound effect.
Also, you do actually create nasal vowels in English. For example, the /i/ sound in the word "going" is nasalized. And if that confuses you enough to exclaim "huh?" out loud to your self, then you would have created the nasal /ɐ̃/ sound.
Later on, you will have plenty of time to master the nasal sounds in Nasal Bootcamp. For now, let's wrap up the sound primer with the a review of all the new phonetic symbols.
Also, you do actually create nasal vowels in English. For example, the /i/ sound in the word "going" is nasalized. And if that confuses you enough to exclaim "huh?" out loud to your self, then you would have created the nasal /ɐ̃/ sound.
Later on, you will have plenty of time to master the nasal sounds in Nasal Bootcamp. For now, let's wrap up the sound primer with the a review of all the new phonetic symbols.
Once you have finished this page, you may move on to the next section - Phonetic Notation Key.
Vowel Awareness | Oral Vowel Tuning | Consonants | Nasal Vowels | Phonetic Notation Key
