Portuguese (Brazil) · Pronunciation Guide

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

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

longo is pronounced with the stress described below. In IPA it is written /ˈlõ.gu/. It means “long.” LONG-goo, with the first o humming through the nose and the second raising to "oo."

LONG-goo, with the first o humming through the nose and the second raising to "oo."

longo /ˈlõ.gu/

Nothing marked, because the ordinary rule already lands on the nasal syllable. It's worth distinguishing from "comprido," which Brazilians often prefer for physical length — "longo" leans toward duration and formality, so a long film is "longo" but long hair is more often "comprido."

Listen: longo

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Sound it out

lon Full l contact, then a closed o with air routed through the nose. The lips stay rounded while the resonance happens.

go Hard g, because an o follows — before an e the same letter would be "zh." The final vowel is "oo," so the word's two o's sound nothing alike: one nasal, one raised.

Hear it in a sentence

O filme é muito longo.

The movie is very long.

Listen: O filme é muito longo.

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"O filme é muito longo" opens with the article as "oo" and "filme" ending in a raised e, giving FEEW-mee — note the vocalized l in the middle of that noun. So the sentence contains a vocalized l, an unwritten nasal in "muito," and a written nasal in "longo."

Where English speakers slip

English speakers produce a real "ng" consonant at the end of the first syllable, as in English "long," and then an unraised "oh" at the end. Neither is right: the nasality lives inside the vowel, and the final o is "oo." The word is also less common than learners expect, since "comprido" and "demorado" cover much of its ground in everyday Brazilian speech.