How to Pronounce 'Irmão': Portuguese (Portugal) Pronunciation Guide

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

irmão is pronounced with the stress described below. In IPA it is written [iɾˈmɐ̃w̃]. It means “brother.” Say "eer-MOWNG" but let the ending come out through your nose rather than closing into a real "ng".

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

Say "eer-MOWNG" but let the ending come out through your nose rather than closing into a real "ng".

irmão [iɾˈmɐ̃w̃]

Stress falls on the second syllable, which contains the strongly nasal "ão" diphthong — one of European Portuguese's signature sounds.

Listen: irmão

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Sound it out

ir Unstressed first syllable: a short "eer" with a light tapped r sliding into the next syllable.

mã The stressed nucleus, a nasalized open "ah" — push air through the nose while keeping the mouth open.

o Glides off the nasal "ã" into a nasal "oo/ow" tail, together forming the classic "ão" nasal diphthong, distinct from any English sound — closest to a nasalized version of "own" said without fully closing the lips on an "n".

Hear it in a sentence

Tenho um irmão mais novo.

I have a younger brother.

Listen: Tenho um irmão mais novo.

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"Tenho um irmão mais novo" uses "tenho" (I have, from "ter") rather than "há" or "possuo" — "ter" is the standard verb for possession and family relationships in Portuguese. "Mais novo" literally means "more new" but idiomatically means "younger"; Portuguese doesn't have a dedicated word for "younger sibling" the way some languages do. "Um" here is the indefinite article "a", not the number "one", though context can make it ambiguous.

Where English speakers slip

The "ão" nasal diphthong is notoriously hard for English speakers, who often either drop the nasalization ("eer-MOW") or turn it into a full English "-own" with a hard n. In European Portuguese the vowel quality is also more centralized and the word spoken faster/clipped compared to the more open, drawn-out Brazilian rendering — practicing this exact sound in isolation is worth the extra effort since it recurs in dozens of common words.