Portuguese (Brazil) · Pronunciation Guide

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

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

cinco is pronounced with the stress described below. In IPA it is written /ˈsĩ.ku/. It means “five.” SEEN-koo, with the first vowel nasalized and the n not actually pronounced as a separate consonant.

SEEN-koo, with the first vowel nasalized and the n not actually pronounced as a separate consonant.

cinco /ˈsĩ.ku/

Say SEEN-koo with the punch at the front. That stressed syllable is also the nasal one, so the nasal resonance is the most audible thing in the word.

Listen: cinco

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Sound it out

ci A c before i is soft — a plain s sound. Then the i, which nasalizes because of the n that follows: say "ee" while letting air out through your nose at the same time.

n This n doesn't get a beat of its own. It signals nasalization of the preceding vowel and hands over directly to the c; in practice you'll hear a faint hum, not a full n consonant.

co Hard k — c before o always is — and the ending comes out "oo," not "oh." Note that the same letter opened this word as an s.

Hear it in a sentence

Trabalho cinco dias por semana.

I work five days a week.

Listen: Trabalho cinco dias por semana.

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"Trabalho cinco dias por semana" is dense with Brazilian markers. "Trabalho" ends in lh, a single palatal "ly" sound; "dias" begins with the d-becomes-dj change; and "por" ends with the throaty h that syllable-final r produces. The number sits quietly in the middle of all of that.

Where English speakers slip

The wrong version is "SINK-oh" with a hard, fully articulated n-k sequence and an unraised final vowel. Brazilians nasalize the vowel and glide into the k without a distinct n stop. Spanish speakers arrive with "cinco" already nearly right, but their final o stays "oh" — in Brazil it lifts to "oo," which is a small change that makes a large difference to how native it sounds.