Portuguese (Brazil) · Pronunciation Guide

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

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

agora is pronounced with the stress described below. In IPA it is written /aˈgɔ.ɾa/. It means “now.” ah-GAW-rah. The stressed o is wide open, and the r is a single flick.

ah-GAW-rah. The stressed o is wide open, and the r is a single flick.

agora /aˈgɔ.ɾa/

Second-to-last syllable stress, which the -a ending supplies by default, no accent. The open quality of that stressed o goes unmarked, as it usually does in Portuguese — the language writes ó and ô only when some independent rule forces an accent onto the word.

Listen: agora

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Sound it out

a An unstressed open "ah" starting the word, brief and unglamorous, often swallowed into whatever came before it.

go Hard g before the o, and the o itself is open — jaw down, like the vowel in "thought." This is the stressed syllable and the word's clear peak.

ra A single r between vowels means one quick tap of the tongue tip. The final a then lightens toward "uh" without disappearing.

Hear it in a sentence

Vamos embora agora.

Let's go now.

Listen: Vamos embora agora.

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"Vamos embora agora" ends with two a-initial words running together, "embora agora," and Brazilians glide straight through the seam. "Embora" itself opens with a nasal, so the phrase moves from a hum into two consecutive open vowels and out through a tapped r.

Where English speakers slip

Closing the stressed o to "oh" shifts the vowel noticeably away from what Brazilians say — keep the jaw down. The r attracts the usual rolling from Spanish speakers and curling from English ones, when it's a single light tap. And in casual speech Brazilians often clip the whole thing to "gora," which can be baffling the first time you hear it.