Portuguese (Brazil) · Pronunciation Guide

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

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

fácil is pronounced with the stress described below. In IPA it is written /ˈfa.siw/. It means “easy.” FAH-see-oo. Stress up front, and the l at the end turns into a w.

FAH-see-oo. Stress up front, and the l at the end turns into a w.

fácil /ˈfa.siw/

The accent is doing genuine work. Words ending in l are normally stressed on the last syllable — think azul, papel, hotel — so without that mark you would read this as fa-CIL. The acute overrides the default and pulls the weight to the front, which is why the plural "fáceis" keeps its accent too.

Listen: fácil

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Sound it out

fá The acute accent pins the stress here and confirms a wide-open a. Give this syllable real length — it carries almost all the word's weight.

ci Soft c before the i, so a plain s, and then a high "ee." Unstressed and quick, sandwiched between the loud opening and the glide at the end.

l Closing a syllable, so it vocalizes completely to a w. The word ends on a rounded glide with no tongue contact at all, which makes "fácil" sound closer to "FAH-see-oo" than to anything with an l in it.

Hear it in a sentence

Essa receita é fácil.

This recipe is easy.

Listen: Essa receita é fácil.

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"Essa receita é fácil" ends on the vocalized l with nothing after it, so you hear the glide simply trail off. "Receita" is worth a look on its own: the c before an e is soft, and the "ei" is a stressed diphthong, giving heh-SAY-tah with a throaty h at the front from that initial r.

Where English speakers slip

Two habits collide here. English speakers pronounce a real l and say "FAH-sil," and Spanish speakers, whose "fácil" is spelled identically, do exactly the same. Brazilians replace the l with a w. The other error is ignoring the accent and stressing the second syllable, which produces a word Brazilians won't immediately recognize.