Portuguese (Brazil) · Pronunciation Guide

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

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

cansado is pronounced with the stress described below. In IPA it is written /kãˈsa.du/. It means “tired.” kahn-SAH-doo. The first vowel hums through the nose, and the last one raises to "oo."

kahn-SAH-doo. The first vowel hums through the nose, and the last one raises to "oo."

cansado /kãˈsa.du/

The middle syllable is loud, exactly as the default predicts for a word ending in -o. Notice how the two a's differ: the unstressed one is nasal and narrow, the stressed one oral and wide, which gives the word its lopsided, sighing rhythm.

Listen: cansado

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Sound it out

can Hard k, then an a that the following n turns nasal. A nasal a in Portuguese sits higher and further back than the wide oral one — think of the vowel in "sun" hummed rather than spoken.

sa The s stays a clean hiss rather than voicing, because it opens a syllable instead of sitting between vowels. This is the loud syllable, and its a is wide open — a real contrast with the nasal one before it.

do Nothing palatalizes here: an o follows, not an i, so the d is a plain dental stop. The vowel behind it raises to "oo," leaving the word to end quietly.

Hear it in a sentence

Estou muito cansado.

I'm very tired.

Listen: Estou muito cansado.

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"Estou muito cansado" is one of those sentences Brazilians almost never say in full — "tô muito cansado" is the real-world version. "Muito" carries a nasal first syllable despite having no tilde at all, so the phrase runs nasal-nasal-nasal across three consecutive words.

Where English speakers slip

Giving the n full consonant value produces "kan-SAH-doh," which flattens the nasal into an ordinary vowel plus a stop. Let the nose carry it. The ending is the other habit to break, since English speakers leave that final o as "oh." And remember the form changes with the speaker: a woman says "cansada."