Portuguese (Portugal) · Pronunciation Guide

How do you pronounce "ainda" in Portuguese (Portugal)?

Q: How do you pronounce ainda in Portuguese (Portugal)?

ainda is pronounced with the stress described below. In IPA it is written /ɐˈĩdɐ/. It means “still, yet.” Say "uh-EEN-duh", with a nasal "EEN" in the middle and both surrounding vowels reduced to a quick "uh".

Say "uh-EEN-duh", with a nasal "EEN" in the middle and both surrounding vowels reduced to a quick "uh".

ainda /ɐˈĩdɐ/

Stress falls on the middle syllable, which is a nasal "i" sound; the initial and final "a" vowels are both unstressed and reduce toward "uh".

Listen: ainda

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Sound it out

a Unstressed initial "a" reduces to a short, neutral "uh", not the open "ah" you'd expect from the letter alone.

in A nasal "een" sound, air routed through the nose, similar to the "in" of French "vin" rather than English "in" in "pin".

da Unstressed final "a" also reduces to "uh", giving the word a soft, quick ending rather than a full "dah".

Hear it in a sentence

Ainda estou a comer.

I'm still eating.

Listen: Ainda estou a comer.

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"Ainda estou a comer" means "I'm still eating", using the European Portuguese progressive construction "estar a + infinitive" instead of the Brazilian "estar + gerúndio" ("estou comendo"). This "a + infinitive" pattern is one of the clearest grammatical markers of European over Brazilian Portuguese, so it's worth internalizing early. "Ainda" itself sits before the verb phrase, matching English "still" placement fairly closely.

Where English speakers slip

Learners often say a full, un-nasalized "ain-da" with a clear English "eye-n" diphthong at the start, but the correct sound is a single nasal vowel "een" — no diphthong glide at all — plus a swallowed initial "a". Reading the spelling too literally is the main trap, since "ai" here doesn't behave like the "ai" in English "pain".