How to Pronounce 'Bom Dia': Portuguese (Brazil) Pronunciation Guide

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

bom dia is pronounced with the stress described below. In IPA it is written /bõ ˈdʒi.ɐ/. It means “good morning.” boh(n) DJEE-ah. The second word starts with a "dj" like the beginning of "jeep," not a plain d.

How do you pronounce "bom dia" in Portuguese (Brazil)?

boh(n) DJEE-ah. The second word starts with a "dj" like the beginning of "jeep," not a plain d.

bom dia /bõ ˈdʒi.ɐ/

Each word gets its own accent: "bom" is a single stressed syllable, and "dia" takes the weight on "di-" because words ending in -a are stressed on the second-to-last syllable by default, no written mark required. In the phrase as a whole, "dia" is the louder of the two.

Listen: bom dia

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Sound it out

bom The m never closes into a real consonant — it just tells you the o is nasal. Say "oh" while letting air escape through the nose and cut it off there; your lips should not come together at the end.

di This is the signature Brazilian sound change: d followed by an i-sound becomes "dj," the consonant that opens English "jeans." A hard "dee" is correct in Portugal and instantly foreign in Brazil.

a The final unstressed a is a light, slightly centralized "uh" — softer than the sharp "ah" in the stressed position, but still clearly a vowel, not the swallowed schwa of European Portuguese.

Hear it in a sentence

Bom dia! Como vai?

Good morning! How are you?

Listen: Bom dia! Como vai?

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"Bom dia! Como vai?" pairs the greeting with a stock question, and the linking is worth hearing: the nasal end of "bom" flows straight into the d of "dia" so the phrase has no gap in it. Meanwhile "vai" ends in the same "eye" diphthong shape you'll meet all over the language.

Where English speakers slip

Almost every English speaker says "bom DEE-ah" with a hard d, which is the single most recognizable non-Brazilian accent marker there is. Make it "DJEE-ah." The other half of the problem is the m in "bom": English speakers close their lips and produce an audible "bome," when the m is purely a spelling instruction to nasalize the vowel.