Portuguese (Brazil) · Pronunciation Guide

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

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

a ideia is pronounced with the stress described below. In IPA it is written /a iˈdej.ɐ/. It means “idea.” ah ee-DAY-ah. Three syllables in the noun, and the d stays hard.

ah ee-DAY-ah. Three syllables in the noun, and the d stays hard.

a ideia /a iˈdej.ɐ/

The weight sits on the "dei," delivered by the -a default with the diphthong counting as one syllable. Brazilian spelling dropped the old accent on this word in the 2009 reform — it used to be written "idéia," and you'll still see the older form in books printed before then.

Listen: a ideia

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Sound it out

i An unstressed high "ee" standing as its own syllable at the front. It runs straight out of the article's "ah" with no break between them.

dei The d stays hard, because the vowel immediately after it is an e rather than an i — palatalization needs the i to come directly next. Then "ei," a closed e gliding to a y, carrying the stress.

a A final a taking its own beat and lightening toward "uh." It doesn't merge with the y-glide before it, so the noun is three syllables.

Hear it in a sentence

Que ideia boa!

What a good idea!

Listen: Que ideia boa!

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"Que ideia boa!" uses the bare "que" exclamation with no article, the standard Portuguese pattern for "what a..." "Boa" is itself two syllables for the same reason "ideia" ends in two — an o and an a never fuse into a diphthong.

Where English speakers slip

Palatalizing the d to "djay" over-applies the rule; the trigger has to sit immediately after the consonant, and here an e intervenes. Squashing the ending into a glide is the second error. And learners who studied from older textbooks often write "idéia," which the spelling reform abolished.