Portuguese (Brazil) · Pronunciation Guide

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

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

cedo is pronounced with the stress described below. In IPA it is written /ˈse.du/. It means “early.” SEH-doo. Soft c giving an s, and the final o raises to "oo."

SEH-doo. Soft c giving an s, and the final o raises to "oo."

cedo /ˈse.du/

Weight on "ce-," nothing written. The word is a good early test of the raising rule with nothing else going on to distract from it: two syllables, one stressed vowel that stays as written, one unstressed o that lifts to "oo."

Listen: cedo

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Sound it out

ce The c is soft before an e, so a plain s — the same convention English uses in "cent." The vowel is a closed e and it carries the stress.

do The d stays hard because an o follows rather than an i, and that o raises to "oo." Had the word ended in -de, you would have got "djee" instead.

Hear it in a sentence

Acordo cedo todo dia.

I wake up early every day.

Listen: Acordo cedo todo dia.

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"Acordo cedo todo dia" runs three words ending in the raised "oo" sound — acordo, cedo, todo — before landing on the palatalized "DJEE-ah" of "dia." It's an unusually clean drill for the final-o rule, four words deep.

Where English speakers slip

Reading the c as a k gives "KEH-doh," which is a straightforward misreading, and leaving the final o unraised is the quieter error underneath it. Learners also confuse "cedo" with "cedo" the verb form of "ceder" — same spelling, same sound, entirely different word, distinguished only by context.