Portuguese (Brazil) · Pronunciation Guide

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

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

demais is pronounced with the stress described below. In IPA it is written /dʒiˈmajs/. It means “too much.” djee-MICE. The opening d becomes a "dj," and the second half sounds like the English word "mice."

djee-MICE. The opening d becomes a "dj," and the second half sounds like the English word "mice."

demais /dʒiˈmajs/

Weight lands on the final syllable, which is where the stress already sat in "mais" before the two words fused. Portuguese has a lot of these welded compounds — depois, demais, além — and in each of them the original stress survives the merger unchanged rather than shifting to the new word's centre.

Listen: demais

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Sound it out

de The unstressed e raises to i, which converts the d into "dj" — the sound that opens English "jeep." This is the same little word "de" that you meet everywhere, now welded onto the front of another.

mais An m, then "ai" as the diphthong in "eye," then a closing s. It's the standalone word "mais" carried over intact, and it takes all the stress in the compound.

Hear it in a sentence

Você fala demais.

You talk too much.

Listen: Você fala demais.

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"Você fala demais" places the word after the verb, where it carries a mildly critical edge — too much, rather than simply a lot. The final s stays a hiss here because nothing follows it, but drop another word on the end and it would voice into a z.

Where English speakers slip

Saying "day-MICE" or "deh-MICE" misses the palatalization at the front. It's "djee." The other issue is meaning: "demais" can mean too much in a complaint or genuinely great in slang — "esse filme é demais" is praise — and the tone of voice is the only thing separating them.