Portuguese (Brazil) · Pronunciation Guide

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

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

a grama is pronounced with the stress described below. In IPA it is written /a ˈgɾɐ.mɐ/. It means “grass.” ah GRAH-mah. A tapped r right after the g, and both a's stay light.

ah GRAH-mah. A tapped r right after the g, and both a's stay light.

a grama /a ˈgɾɐ.mɐ/

The accent, unwritten, sits on the first syllable. There's a gender wrinkle worth knowing: "a grama" is grass, while "o grama" is a gram of weight. Same spelling, same stress, same sound, and only the article distinguishes two completely unrelated meanings.

Listen: a grama

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Sound it out

gr Hard g with a tap flicked immediately after it. Keep them glued together — English speakers habitually let a small vowel leak in, and Spanish speakers over-roll the r.

a The stressed a, though not the widest possible one: in Brazil an a before an m picks up a raised, faintly nasal colouring even when the m opens the next syllable.

ma A real m with the lips closing, opening its own syllable, then a last a easing toward "uh." Neither vowel is a full nasal despite the m between them.

Hear it in a sentence

As crianças brincam na grama.

The children play on the grass.

Listen: As crianças brincam na grama.

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"As crianças brincam na grama" puts everything in the plural and links "as crianças" so the article's s voices into the following consonant cluster. "Brincam" ends in an unstressed nasal, and "na" is the em-plus-article contraction.

Where English speakers slip

Breaking the gr cluster gives "guh-RAH-mah," three syllables where there are two. The gender trap is the more consequential one, since asking for "um grama" at a garden centre and "uma grama" at a butcher will both produce confusion. And English speakers flatten both a's into schwas.