Portuguese (Portugal) · Pronunciation Guide

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

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

reunião is pronounced with the stress described below. In IPA it is written [ʁiuniˈɐ̃w̃]. It means “meeting.” Say "heoo-nee-OWNG," with a throaty "h"-like r at the start and a nasal, humming "ãoo" at the end.

Say "heoo-nee-OWNG," with a throaty "h"-like r at the start and a nasal, humming "ãoo" at the end.

reunião [ʁiuniˈɐ̃w̃]

Stress falls on the final syllable ão, a nasal diphthong pronounced through the nose with a fading "w" glide; word-initial r is a guttural sound, close to an English "h," not a tapped r.

Listen: reunião

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Sound it out

reu- Word-initial r is guttural, produced at the back of the throat — much closer to an English "h" than to any American or Spanish r.

-ni- A light, quick "nee" leading into the final syllable.

-ÃO This nasal diphthong is the stressed, loudest part of the word — say it through the nose, like a nasalized "owng" with no hard final consonant, similar to the ending of "croissant" said with a nasal twang.

Hear it in a sentence

Temos uma reunião às dez.

We have a meeting at ten.

Listen: Temos uma reunião às dez.

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"Temos uma reunião às dez" uses temos ("we have") from ter, and às dez contracts the preposition a with the feminine article as ("at the," for clock times) plus dez ("ten"). Clock times in Portuguese take a/às rather than "at" translated word-for-word, a pattern worth memorizing.

Where English speakers slip

The biggest giveaway is the initial r: English speakers default to a tongue-tip r, but Lisbon Portuguese uses a raspy, back-of-throat sound close to an English h, so reunião should start almost like "heunião." The final ão is also frequently under-nasalized by learners — it needs real airflow through the nose, held through the whole diphthong, rather than being clipped short the way many Brazilian speakers in casual speech might do.