Vowel Awareness | Oral Vowel Tuning | Consonants | Nasal Vowels | Phonetic Notation Key
Portuguese Vowel Tuning
Compared to other Latin languages such as Spanish or Italian, Portuguese has a relatively rich menu of vowel sounds. These vowel sounds are the same for the most part across all dialects of Portuguese.
What actually differs between dialects is the organization of these sounds. In other words, you can easily tune your ear to different dialects of Portuguese by knowing the sound menu and figuring out what the changes are.
I am familiar with all the major European, Latin American and African dialects of Portuguese, and I have the most experience with Brazilian Portuguese. This course will focus on Brazilian music and the primer below discusses the 10 Portuguese oral vowels from the Brazilian context.
Portuguese has both oral and nasal vowels. We will go over the nasal vowels in a later section of this primer. For now, it suffices to know that the vowel sounds you are used to as an English speaker are all oral. To understanding of these Portuguese oral vowels, I have divided them into three sets.
What actually differs between dialects is the organization of these sounds. In other words, you can easily tune your ear to different dialects of Portuguese by knowing the sound menu and figuring out what the changes are.
I am familiar with all the major European, Latin American and African dialects of Portuguese, and I have the most experience with Brazilian Portuguese. This course will focus on Brazilian music and the primer below discusses the 10 Portuguese oral vowels from the Brazilian context.
Portuguese has both oral and nasal vowels. We will go over the nasal vowels in a later section of this primer. For now, it suffices to know that the vowel sounds you are used to as an English speaker are all oral. To understanding of these Portuguese oral vowels, I have divided them into three sets.
- The 1st set uses symbols that exist in English
- The 2nd and 3rd set use symbols that do not exist in English
The First Set
As an adult, you will associate certain letters with certain sounds. But many of these same letters represent completely different sounds in Portuguese.
You may have a strong tendency to mispronounce Portuguese words simply because you learned them through writing. To prevent this from happening, The Flow of Portuguese relies little on writing. When it does, a given letter will always represent one sound. A given vowel letter below will ALWAYS represent the same vowel sound.
You may have a strong tendency to mispronounce Portuguese words simply because you learned them through writing. To prevent this from happening, The Flow of Portuguese relies little on writing. When it does, a given letter will always represent one sound. A given vowel letter below will ALWAYS represent the same vowel sound.
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The vowels occur in the following order: a...i...u...e...o
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/a/
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/o/
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/e/
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/u/
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The Second Set
Even if you are more experienced, you still may have a habit of conceptualizing these sounds in relationship to vowels from the first set (e.g. /ɔ/ is conventionally taught as "open /o/").
This is just a writing convention and not based on the acoustic reality of the language. Every vowel sound is unique is its own right and must be thought of uniquely.
If you think of the /ɔ/ as "open o", you're going to have trouble distinguishing between the two. Instead, develop the habit of thinking of /ɔ/ as one vowel, and /o/ as another. Always associate these symbols with their actual real sound. This way, when you hear Portuguese speech, you will have an easy time separating the two sounds in your mind.
The second set contains three vowels. All of these vowel sounds exist in English. They just don't have their own specific letter to represent them in English (nor in Portuguese).
This is just a writing convention and not based on the acoustic reality of the language. Every vowel sound is unique is its own right and must be thought of uniquely.
If you think of the /ɔ/ as "open o", you're going to have trouble distinguishing between the two. Instead, develop the habit of thinking of /ɔ/ as one vowel, and /o/ as another. Always associate these symbols with their actual real sound. This way, when you hear Portuguese speech, you will have an easy time separating the two sounds in your mind.
The second set contains three vowels. All of these vowel sounds exist in English. They just don't have their own specific letter to represent them in English (nor in Portuguese).
/ɐ/
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/ɛ/
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/ɔ/
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Third Set
The third set contains the two vowels that most Portuguese learners and native speakers do not even know about. Both of these vowels exist in English, but you most likely did not know about their existence either. In general, you will not encounter these vowels often but you will still need to learn them for a more authentic accent.
/ɪ/
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/ʊ/
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To review, there are ten vowel sounds in Portuguese, with only two of them (/a/ and /o/) being slightly different from those of English. So the challenge with oral vowels isn't in their pronunciation; the challenge is in developing your awareness of them.
As you progress through the song lessons, you should refer to this page often. When you receive feedback on your pronunciation, it is likely that your error will have already been explained on this page.
As you gain more practical experience with Portuguese sounds, these explanations will become more clear, so don't let this be the last time you visit the page. Move on to the next lesson on consonants.
As you progress through the song lessons, you should refer to this page often. When you receive feedback on your pronunciation, it is likely that your error will have already been explained on this page.
As you gain more practical experience with Portuguese sounds, these explanations will become more clear, so don't let this be the last time you visit the page. Move on to the next lesson on consonants.
Vowel Awareness | Oral Vowel Tuning | Consonants | Nasal Vowels | Phonetic Notation Key
