Portuguese (Brazil) · Pronunciation Guide

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

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

lembrar is pronounced with the stress described below. In IPA it is written /lẽˈbɾah/. It means “to remember.” leng-BRAH. Nasal first syllable, tapped r in the cluster, and stress on the second syllable.

leng-BRAH. Nasal first syllable, tapped r in the cluster, and stress on the second syllable.

lembrar /lẽˈbɾah/

Weight on "-brar." Worth pairing with its opposite "esquecer," which is also end-stressed but takes a soft c. Note too that the textbook form is "lembrar-se de," though Brazilians drop the reflexive freely in speech.

Listen: lembrar

Free browser voice. Hear it read by a real native speaker inside the LingoDrop app.

Sound it out

lem An l with real tongue contact, then an e that the following m turns nasal. Portuguese writes m rather than n before a b, but the lips never actually close.

brar A b, a flicked r, the loud wide vowel, and a closing r made of air. Two r's written identically inside one syllable, doing completely different jobs.

Hear it in a sentence

Você lembra dela?

Do you remember her?

Listen: Você lembra dela?

Free browser voice. Hear it read by a real native speaker inside the LingoDrop app.

"Você lembra dela?" uses the present tense, stressed on the first syllable — "LEHNG-brah" — and takes the contraction "dela," which is "de" plus "ela" fused into one word. That contraction is obligatory: writing "de ela" is not an option in Portuguese.

Where English speakers slip

Learners pronounce a full m and produce "lem-BRAR" with the lips closing, which adds a consonant that isn't there. The preposition is the other issue: "lembrar de" is the pattern, so "lembro de você" rather than "lembro você," and dropping the "de" changes the meaning toward reminding someone rather than remembering them.