Portuguese (Brazil) · Pronunciation Guide

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

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

bonito is pronounced with the stress described below. In IPA it is written /boˈni.tu/. It means “pretty / good-looking.” boh-NEE-too. Stress in the middle, and only the last o raises to "oo."

boh-NEE-too. Stress in the middle, and only the last o raises to "oo."

bonito /boˈni.tu/

Second-to-last syllable, delivered by the -o default without an accent. The word is a clean illustration of a rule learners tend to over-apply: it contains two unstressed o's, and only the final one raises. Position matters, not stress alone.

Listen: bonito

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Sound it out

bo A bilabial b with the lips fully closing and a closed "oh." Unstressed, and note that it stays "oh" — the raising rule applies to a word-final o, not to every unstressed one.

ni An n opening the syllable, so nothing nasalizes, and a stressed high "ee." This is the loud centre of the word.

to The t stays hard because the vowel behind it is an o, and that o raises to "oo." Compare what would happen if the ending were -te: the t would palatalize to "tch."

Hear it in a sentence

Que casa bonita!

What a pretty house!

Listen: Que casa bonita!

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"Que casa bonita!" uses the bare "que" exclamation with no article, which is the standard Portuguese pattern for "what a..." The adjective agrees with the feminine noun, and "casa" has an intervocalic s voiced to a z, giving KAH-zah.

Where English speakers slip

Learners raise both o's and produce "boo-NEE-too," over-generalizing a rule that only touches the final vowel. English speakers separately keep the last o as "oh," which is the opposite mistake. On usage: "bonito" is milder than "lindo," so Brazilians reach for "lindo" when they actually want to enthuse.