Portuguese (Brazil) · Pronunciation Guide

How do you pronounce "a cidade" in Portuguese (Brazil)?

Q: How do you pronounce a cidade in Portuguese (Brazil)?

a cidade is pronounced with the stress described below. In IPA it is written /a siˈda.dʒi/. It means “city.” ah see-DAH-djee. Soft c at the front, hard d in the middle, and a "djee" at the end.

ah see-DAH-djee. Soft c at the front, hard d in the middle, and a "djee" at the end.

a cidade /a siˈda.dʒi/

Front of the second-to-last syllable, by the -e default. The word makes an excellent palatalization drill precisely because it contains the same consonant twice in adjacent syllables with opposite outcomes — hearing "DAH" and "djee" back to back is the fastest way to internalize the rule.

Listen: a cidade

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Sound it out

ci The c is soft before an i, so a plain s. Then a short unstressed "ee." Portuguese follows the same soft-c convention English does in "city," which happens to be this word's cousin.

da A hard dental d, because an a follows. This is the stressed syllable, with a wide-open vowel and the word's greatest length.

de The same consonant as the previous syllable, now followed by an unstressed e that raises to i — so it becomes "dj." Two d's, two treatments, decided entirely by their vowels.

Hear it in a sentence

Essa cidade é linda.

This city is beautiful.

Listen: Essa cidade é linda.

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"Essa cidade é linda" links the noun's final "ee" into the open vowel of "é." "Linda" then contributes a nasal first syllable, so the sentence ends on a hum after two palatal-ish sounds — and note the adjective agrees with the feminine noun.

Where English speakers slip

Treating both d's alike, usually as hard English d's, gives "see-DAH-day." Only the second one palatalizes. Reading the c as a k is the other misstep, though less common since English shares the soft-c rule. Spanish speakers face a bigger hurdle: their "ciudad" has a different vowel structure and no final syllable at all.