Portuguese (Brazil) · Pronunciation Guide

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

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

a noite is pronounced with the stress described below. In IPA it is written /a ˈnoj.tʃi/. It means “night.” ah NOY-tchee. The oi is one diphthong, and the ending is "tchee" rather than "teh."

ah NOY-tchee. The oi is one diphthong, and the ending is "tchee" rather than "teh."

a noite /a ˈnoj.tʃi/

The diphthong is loud and counts as a single syllable. The phrase "boa noite" works as both a greeting and a farewell in Portuguese, unlike English where good night is only ever a goodbye — a small but frequently confusing difference.

Listen: a noite

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Sound it out

a Unstressed, open, and gone in an instant — but obligatory, since Portuguese nouns rarely stand bare the way English ones do.

noi A real n consonant and then "oi," a closed o gliding to a y — the vowel of "boy." One syllable, and the stressed one.

te The e at the end is heard as "i," palatalizing the t. This is what makes "boa noite" sound so unlike its Spanish counterpart.

Hear it in a sentence

Boa noite, até amanhã.

Good night, see you tomorrow.

Listen: Boa noite, até amanhã.

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"Boa noite, até amanhã" pairs the greeting with a farewell, and "até" carries an acute marking a stressed open e. "Amanhã" then delivers an nh and a stressed nasal ã, so the sentence ends on a hum with nothing closing it off.

Where English speakers slip

"NOY-tay" with a hard t is what the spelling suggests and what Brazilians never say. It's "tchee." Learners also break the diphthong into "no-EE-tchee," giving three syllables where there are two. And using "boa noite" only as a farewell is a usage error — Brazilians say it walking into a room after dark.