nasal vowel : mouth sound + nasal sound The velum needs to be relaxed when pronouncing nasal vowels.

velum

(a)

We’ve noticed that some English speaking students share similar difficulties in the initial process of learning Portuguese. So we’ve decided to put together this short informative lesson, tackling some of these problems. Most notably and

. HAVE FUN!

Gender of nouns (who knew?)

Portuguese nouns (and adjectives) can be either or , singular or plural, and will be preceded by a masculine

or feminine article (o, a). The gender of nouns causes confusion not only among beginners. Some examples: Masculine Feminine

o aluno (the male student) a aluna (the female student) o professor (the male teacher) a professora (the female teacher) o menino dedicado a menina dedicada (the dedicated boy) (the dedicated girl)

Nasal Vowels

You probably already know that Portuguese is , which can be challenging for English speakers.

Portuguese has twelve vowel sounds, including oral and nasal sounds. These nasal vowels can be identified by the tilde (~) or if they are followed by n or m at the end of a word or syllable.

Examples: Mão, limão, limões, mãe, manhã, jovem, homem, quarenta, lindo, tempo, banheiro, sonhar, etc. The pronunciation of the nasal vowels require practice, but it’s less difficult than it sounds.

The accent or stress Here’s a simple rule: when the word ends in , , or

, they are stressed on the penultimate syllable. Ex: mesa, falam, homem, cabelo. Another super easy way to identify the stressed syllable is the

accents (´, ^, ~). Please be aware of the differences in the pronunciation between words stressed with acute or circumflex accent.

The (´) indicates an open vowel sound: café, avó, pé. The (^), expresses a closed sound as in você, pêssego, avô.

We hope you have enjoyed this short lesson! And remember: our teachers are all native Brazilian Portuguese speakers, experienced and trained, so you can

be sure you will master pronunciation, grammar and other skills in a fun, interactive and effective way!