Portuguese (Brazil) · Pronunciation Guide

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

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

mil is pronounced with the stress described below. In IPA it is written /ˈmiw/. It means “one thousand.” MEE-oo, said as a single beat. The l at the end turns into a w — your tongue never touches the roof of your mouth.

MEE-oo, said as a single beat. The l at the end turns into a w — your tongue never touches the roof of your mouth.

mil /ˈmiw/

One syllable, so nothing to place. "Azul," "papel" and "hotel" all end in l and all stress the last syllable for the same reason, which is why none of them carries an accent mark.

Listen: mil

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Sound it out

mi An ordinary m and a clean, high "ee." Keep the vowel tight and short; this is a brisk one-syllable word, not a drawn-out one.

l The defining Brazilian feature here: an l closing a syllable is pronounced as a w glide. So "mil" ends like the end of English "few," not like the end of "mill." This applies to every syllable-final l in the language.

Hear it in a sentence

O celular custou mil reais.

The phone cost a thousand reais.

Listen: O celular custou mil reais.

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"O celular custou mil reais" opens with the article "o," which Brazilians pronounce "oo," and "celular" itself ends in a syllable-final r rendered as a breath. "Custou" shows the ou spelling flattened to a plain "oh" — so the sentence is a compact tour of three separate Brazilian reductions before you even reach the number.

Where English speakers slip

Saying "mill" with a real l is the single most common mistake, and it's a stubborn one because English speakers don't hear their own l as unusual. Brazilians replace it wholesale with a w. Spanish speakers make the same error for the same reason, since Spanish keeps a true l in "mil." Try saying "me" then "oo" quickly and fusing them.