Portuguese (Brazil) · Pronunciation Guide

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

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

de nada is pronounced with the stress described below. In IPA it is written /dʒi ˈna.dɐ/. It means “you're welcome.” djee NAH-duh. That first word is "dji," not "day" and not "deh."

djee NAH-duh. That first word is "dji," not "day" and not "deh."

de nada /dʒi ˈna.dɐ/

"Nada" ends in -a, so the default puts the accent on the second-to-last syllable, "na-," and no written mark is needed to say so. The little word "de" leans on "nada" without carrying stress of its own, which is exactly why its vowel gets reduced up toward i in the first place.

Listen: de nada

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Sound it out

de Two Brazilian rules stack up in this tiny word: the unstressed final e rises to an "i" sound, and that i then pulls the d into a "dj." The result rhymes with the start of "gee whiz."

na A plain n and a wide-open "ah" — the loudest sound in the phrase and the one to lean on. Keep the vowel bright and low, nothing like the flat English a of "nap."

da A hard d again, since it's followed by an a rather than an i. The final a relaxes into a soft "uh" without disappearing altogether.

Hear it in a sentence

De nada, foi um prazer.

You're welcome, it was a pleasure.

Listen: De nada, foi um prazer.

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"De nada, foi um prazer" is a set formula worth learning as one melody. Listen to how "foi um" fuses into something like "foy-oong," the nasal of "um" swallowing the boundary between the words, and how the final r of "prazer" turns into a soft breathy h rather than any kind of English r.

Where English speakers slip

English speakers reading "de" default to "day" or "duh," both wrong; Brazilian Portuguese makes it "djee" nearly every time it appears unstressed. The second habit to break is the English d in "nada," which we make with the tongue on the ridge behind the teeth — Portuguese puts the tongue right against the back of the upper teeth, giving a softer, more dental sound.