Portuguese (Brazil) · Pronunciation Guide

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

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

frio is pronounced with the stress described below. In IPA it is written /ˈfɾi.u/. It means “cold.” FREE-oo. Two syllables, not one — the i and the o don't fuse into a diphthong.

FREE-oo. Two syllables, not one — the i and the o don't fuse into a diphthong.

frio /ˈfɾi.u/

The i is the loud one, which only works because it and the o are separate syllables rather than a diphthong. Portuguese generally keeps a stressed i apart from a neighbouring vowel, which is why "frio" is two beats while "rio" and "tio" are also two, and why "pai" and "mais" are one.

Listen: frio

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Sound it out

fr A single tapped r flicked immediately after the f, tight and quick, with nothing between the two consonants.

i A tense high "ee" carrying the stress, and standing as its own complete syllable. It doesn't glide into what follows.

o The final unstressed o raises to "oo" and gets a beat of its own. Two vowels, two syllables, with a genuine seam between them rather than a glide.

Hear it in a sentence

Está frio hoje.

It's cold today.

Listen: Está frio hoje.

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"Está frio hoje" would come out as "tá frio hoje" in ordinary speech. Because "hoje" begins with a silent h, the final "oo" of "frio" runs straight into it, so the three words flow as one continuous stream ending in that soft "zh."

Where English speakers slip

Squashing it into one syllable — "free-oh" said as a single glide, or worse "fryoh" — is the standard error. Give the o its own beat. English speakers also leave that o unraised. And note the noun-adjective split: "está frio" describes the weather, but "estou com frio" is how you say you personally feel cold, using "frio" as a noun.