Portuguese (Brazil) · Pronunciation Guide

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

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

melhor is pronounced with the stress described below. In IPA it is written /meˈʎɔh/. It means “better / best.” meh-LYAW. The lh is one palatal sound, the o is wide open, and the final r is a breath.

meh-LYAW. The lh is one palatal sound, the o is wide open, and the final r is a breath.

melhor /meˈʎɔh/

Stress falls on the final syllable, which the r ending guarantees without an accent. This word is irregular in a more interesting way: it's the comparative of both "bom" and "bem," so it covers better and best at once, and Portuguese distinguishes them only with an article — "melhor" versus "o melhor."

Listen: melhor

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

Sound it out

me An m and a closed e, unstressed and quick. It's just a launching pad for the syllable that follows.

lh One consonant made by pressing the blade of the tongue flat against the roof of the mouth — Spanish ll, Italian gli. There is no l-release before it and no h after it; treating it as two sounds is the classic error.

or An open o, jaw down and lips loosely rounded like "thought," and this is the stressed vowel. The r closing the word softens to a rasp of air.

Hear it in a sentence

Este é o melhor café da cidade.

This is the best coffee in town.

Listen: Este é o melhor café da cidade.

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

"Este é o melhor café da cidade" uses "o melhor" to mean the best, with the article doing all the superlative work. "Cidade" ends the sentence with a palatalized "djee," and its opening c is soft before an i, so it's see-DAH-djee.

Where English speakers slip

"mel-HOR" with an audible l and h is the standard beginner rendering, and it's two mistakes at once — the lh is a single palatal, and the final r is breath rather than an English r. The open o gets missed as well. Note also that "mais bom" is not Portuguese: like English "more good," it simply doesn't exist.