Portuguese (Brazil) · Pronunciation Guide

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

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

as is pronounced with the stress described below. In IPA it is written /as/. It means “the (f. pl.).” AHSS, with an open vowel. It's the feminine plural article, and unlike the masculine "os" its vowel doesn't shift.

AHSS, with an open vowel. It's the feminine plural article, and unlike the masculine "os" its vowel doesn't shift.

as /as/

Unstressed and dependent on the noun that follows. Worth keeping straight from its accented relative: "às" with a grave accent is the preposition a merged with this article, used in time expressions like "às seis." They sound identical, and only the writing distinguishes them.

Listen: as

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Sound it out

a An open "ah," jaw down. Unstressed a in Brazilian Portuguese lightens a little but doesn't change quality, which is why this sounds nothing like the masculine plural "os."

s A clean hiss before a consonant or a pause, and a voiced z whenever a vowel follows in the next word. Rio speakers turn this syllable-final s into "sh," but the s pronunciation is standard across most of Brazil.

Hear it in a sentence

As meninas estão na escola.

The girls are at school.

Listen: As meninas estão na escola.

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"As meninas estão na escola" gives you the s-linking rule in action: "meninas estão" runs the plural s into the following vowel as a z, so you hear "me-NEE-nah-zish-TOWNG." Notice too that Portuguese marks plurality on the article, the noun and the verb all at once, while English marks it on just the noun.

Where English speakers slip

Beginners reduce the vowel to "uh" out of English habit, giving a mumbled "uhss." Keep it open. The subtler failure is not voicing the s before a vowel, which makes speech sound clipped and word-by-word. Spanish speakers, meanwhile, must resist inserting "las" — Portuguese has no l in any of its articles.