How to Pronounce 'Mais': Portuguese (Brazil) Pronunciation Guide

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

mais is pronounced with the stress described below. In IPA it is written /majs/. It means “more.” MICE, exactly like the English word. One syllable, with the ai as the vowel of "eye."

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

MICE, exactly like the English word. One syllable, with the ai as the vowel of "eye."

mais /majs/

A monosyllable takes its stress automatically and needs no accent. The word is worth pairing in your head with "mas," meaning "but": the two are distinguished only by that i, and in fast speech Brazilians often blur them, so context does a lot of the work in telling them apart.

Listen: mais

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Sound it out

m An ordinary m, lips together, no surprises. It doesn't nasalize the following vowel — nasalization only spreads backward in Portuguese, from an m or n that closes a syllable.

ai An open "ah" gliding to a y, the diphthong in "high." It's one beat, and this is where all the stress in the word sits.

s A closing hiss that voices to a z before a vowel, so "mais um" comes out "my-ZOONG." This one word gets the linking treatment constantly, since it so often precedes a noun.

Hear it in a sentence

Preciso de mais tempo.

I need more time.

Listen: Preciso de mais tempo.

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"Preciso de mais tempo" puts "mais" between the "djee" of "de" and the nasal of "tempo," so the s stays a hiss rather than voicing — no vowel follows it. "Tempo" itself has a nasal first syllable and a raised final o, giving "TEHNG-poo," which is a compact demonstration of two Brazilian rules in one two-syllable word.

Where English speakers slip

The commonest error is confusing it with "mas" and saying "mahss" when you mean "more." The diphthong is essential. English speakers also occasionally read the s as a z because the word ends in a sibilant, but in isolation and before consonants it's unvoiced. And note the grammar: "mais" plus "do que" is how comparisons work, so "maior do que" and "mais alto do que" are the patterns to internalize.