Portuguese (Brazil) · Pronunciation Guide

How do you pronounce "aberto" in Portuguese (Brazil)?

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

aberto is pronounced with the stress described below. In IPA it is written /aˈbɛɦ.tu/. It means “open.” ah-BEH-too, with a wide-open stressed vowel and a breathy r you can barely hear.

ah-BEH-too, with a wide-open stressed vowel and a breathy r you can barely hear.

aberto /aˈbɛɦ.tu/

Second-to-last syllable stress, standard for an -o ending, no accent. This is the irregular past participle of "abrir" doing double duty as an adjective, and the open stressed e is a genuine sound feature you have to carry with the word — the spelling gives you no clue that it isn't the closed variety.

Listen: aberto

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Sound it out

a An unstressed open "ah" with no consonant in front. In connected speech it often merges with the final vowel of the preceding word and nearly disappears.

ber A b, then an open e — jaw down, like "bet" — and an r finishing the syllable as a faint rasp. This is the stressed syllable, so the vowel should be long and the r should stay out of the way.

to A hard t and a closing "oo." Set against the open, resonant syllable before it, this one sounds clipped.

Hear it in a sentence

O mercado está aberto.

The market is open.

Listen: O mercado está aberto.

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"O mercado está aberto" links "está aberto" so the final "ah" of the verb runs straight into the initial "ah" of the adjective, and in speech the two often fuse into a single longer vowel — especially since "está" is usually clipped to "tá."

Where English speakers slip

The closed-vowel version, "ah-BAY-too," shifts the word away from what Brazilians say. Keep the jaw open. The r is the second casualty, since English speakers reflexively curl it. And the adjective agrees: a shop is "aberta," which learners fixated on the masculine participle often forget.