Portuguese (Brazil) · Pronunciation Guide

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

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

a rua is pronounced with the stress described below. In IPA it is written /a ˈhu.ɐ/. It means “street.” ah HOO-ah. That initial r is a throaty h — no trill, no English r.

ah HOO-ah. That initial r is a throaty h — no trill, no English r.

a rua /a ˈhu.ɐ/

Stress goes to the "u." The two final vowels stay separate rather than forming a diphthong, because Portuguese builds diphthongs around an unstressed i or u — and here the u is the stressed one, so the a after it must stand alone.

Listen: a rua

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Sound it out

a An open vowel leading into the noun's throaty opening — the jump from a clean vowel to a guttural is quite abrupt.

r Word-initial r in Brazil is friction from the back of the throat, close to a firmly pushed English h. This is the single biggest divergence from Spanish, where the same letter demands a trill in this position.

u A rounded "oo" carrying the stress. It arrives straight out of the throat friction, which takes some coordination to do smoothly.

a A final a taking its own beat and lightening toward "uh." It doesn't merge with the u in front of it, so the noun is two syllables.

Hear it in a sentence

Minha rua é muito calma.

My street is very quiet.

Listen: Minha rua é muito calma.

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"Minha rua é muito calma" links "rua é" so the noun's final "uh" runs into the open vowel. "Calma" has a vocalized l, giving KOW-mah, so the sentence contains a guttural h at one end and a w-glide at the other.

Where English speakers slip

Trilling the r is the Spanish transfer error and it's the most common one with this word. Brazilians make it an h. English speakers curl it instead, which is equally wrong. Squashing the two final vowels into a glide — "HWAH" — is the second problem, and it costs the word a syllable.