Portuguese (Brazil) · Pronunciation Guide

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

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

a porta is pronounced with the stress described below. In IPA it is written /a ˈpoɦ.tɐ/. It means “door.” ah POH-tah. The r in the middle is a rasp of breath, not an English r.

ah POH-tah. The r in the middle is a rasp of breath, not an English r.

a porta /a ˈpoɦ.tɐ/

The -a ending sends the weight to the second-to-last syllable, so "por-" is loud and nothing is marked. It's worth setting against "porta" the verb form, meaning he carries — same spelling, same stress, same sound, and only the article and syntax tell them apart.

Listen: a porta

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Sound it out

a Feminine article, open and unstressed, gone almost before you notice it.

por A p with none of the English puff, a closed "oh," and an r at the syllable's end, reduced to a light throat rasp. The vowel carries the stress and the r barely registers inside it.

ta A hard dental t and a final a that lightens toward "uh." Coming after the breathy r, this syllable should feel crisp.

Hear it in a sentence

Alguém bateu na porta.

Someone knocked on the door.

Listen: Alguém bateu na porta.

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"Alguém bateu na porta" uses "na," the contraction of em plus a. "Alguém" contributes a vocalized l and an accented nasal diphthong, and "bateu" ends in a closed e plus a w glide in one beat — so the sentence packs three quite different vowel structures around the noun.

Where English speakers slip

"POR-tah" with an American r is the reflexive English version and the r is the giveaway. Let it become breath. Spanish speakers tap it audibly, which is closer but still not the Brazilian rasp. And the final a gets flattened into a schwa by English speakers, when Brazilians keep it clearly present.