How to Pronounce 'De': Portuguese (Brazil) Pronunciation Guide

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

de is pronounced with the stress described below. In IPA it is written /dʒi/. It means “of / from.” Say "djee," like the letter G. Not "day," not "duh" — the unstressed e raises to i and drags the d into a "dj."

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

Say "djee," like the letter G. Not "day," not "duh" — the unstressed e raises to i and drags the d into a "dj."

de /dʒi/

This preposition has no stress of its own; it attaches to whatever noun follows and borrows its rhythm. That permanent unstressed status is exactly what keeps the vowel raised. When "de" fuses with an article it becomes do, da, dos, das — and those forms do have full vowels, so "do" is "doo" and "da" is "dah," with no palatalization at all.

Listen: de

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Sound it out

d Made with the tongue against the back of the upper teeth, but it doesn't stay a plain d: the i-sound that follows converts it into the affricate at the start of "jeans." This happens automatically and without exception in Brazilian speech.

e An unstressed e at the end of a word raises to "i" in Brazil. Since this word is one syllable and permanently unstressed, its vowel is permanently raised — hence "djee" every single time.

Hear it in a sentence

Este é o livro de Ana.

This is Ana's book.

Listen: Este é o livro de Ana.

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"Este é o livro de Ana" shows "de" doing possession, where English would use an apostrophe-s. Because the next word starts with a vowel, the two run together — "djee-AH-nah" — and there is no glottal stop between them the way an English speaker would instinctively insert. "Este" also raises its initial e, so the sentence opens "ESS-tchee."

Where English speakers slip

The reflex is to say "day," borrowed from how the letters look, or "deh," borrowed from Spanish. Brazilians say "djee." This word appears in almost every sentence you will ever hear, so fixing it once pays off constantly. Beware also of overcorrecting: the contracted forms do, da, dos and das keep a hard d, because their vowels are not i.