Portuguese (Brazil) · Pronunciation Guide

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

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

a lua is pronounced with the stress described below. In IPA it is written /a ˈlu.ɐ/. It means “moon.” ah LOO-ah. Two syllables — the u and a don't fuse into a glide.

ah LOO-ah. Two syllables — the u and a don't fuse into a glide.

a lua /a ˈlu.ɐ/

The default lands on "lu-," as it does for any -a ending, and the two final vowels stay in hiatus. It's the same structure as "rua" and "sua": a stressed u followed by a standalone a, giving two clean beats where an English reader would expect one glide.

Listen: a lua

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Sound it out

a Feminine article, open and unstressed, handing straight over to the l.

lu The l is fully articulated, tongue tip up since it opens the word, and the rounded "oo" behind it carries the stress. Lips genuinely pushed forward.

a A final a taking its own beat and lightening toward "uh." It stays separate from the u, because Portuguese builds diphthongs around an unstressed i or u — and here the u is the stressed one.

Hear it in a sentence

A lua está cheia.

The moon is full.

Listen: A lua está cheia.

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"A lua está cheia" would clip "está" to "tá." "Cheia" opens with a "sh" and ends with its own two-vowel split — SHAY-ah — so both the subject and the adjective in this short sentence finish on a standalone final a.

Where English speakers slip

Squashing it into one syllable gives "LWAH," which is the reflexive English reading and costs the word a beat. Give the final a its own time. Spanish speakers have "luna," with an n that Portuguese lost — so the two words look similar and are built quite differently.