Portuguese (Brazil) · Pronunciation Guide

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

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

branco is pronounced with the stress described below. In IPA it is written /ˈbɾɐ̃.ku/. It means “white.” BRAHN-koo, but the first vowel is nasal and the n never becomes a real consonant.

BRAHN-koo, but the first vowel is nasal and the n never becomes a real consonant.

branco /ˈbɾɐ̃.ku/

Ending in -o, the word follows the default and stresses the second-to-last syllable, "bran-," with no accent mark required. It's a common pattern for Portuguese to place its nasal vowels on the stressed syllable like this, which gives the nasality room to be heard.

Listen: branco

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Sound it out

br A b with an immediately following tapped r — the tongue tip flicks once. English speakers tend to smear these together with a glide; Portuguese keeps them tight and quick.

an The n signals that the a is nasal. It also raises the vowel: a nasalized a in Portuguese is noticeably higher and more centralized than the wide-open "ah" of an oral a, closer to the vowel in "but" hummed through the nose.

co A hard k arriving while the nasal is still fading, and a last vowel that shifts up to a rounded "oo."

Hear it in a sentence

O vestido é branco.

The dress is white.

Listen: O vestido é branco.

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"O vestido é branco" opens with the article "o" pronounced "oo," and "vestido" hides a raised initial e — "vish-TCHEE-doo" — with the stressed di palatalized to "djee." So the sentence puts a nasal at one end and a palatalized d in the middle, two of the most Brazilian sounds in the same short clause.

Where English speakers slip

The failure is pronouncing a full n: "BRAN-koh" with the tongue hitting the roof of the mouth. Brazilians nasalize the vowel and go straight to the k. Beginners also frequently give the a its oral, wide-open value, when nasalization actually raises and narrows it — a nasal a sounds meaningfully different from an oral one, not just breathier.