Portuguese (Brazil) · Pronunciation Guide

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

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

mudar is pronounced with the stress described below. In IPA it is written /muˈdah/. It means “to change.” moo-DAH. Hard d, stress on the second syllable, and the final r evaporates.

moo-DAH. Hard d, stress on the second syllable, and the final r evaporates.

mudar /muˈdah/

moo-DAH as an infinitive, MOO-doo and MOO-dah in the present, all following the ordinary defaults. The verb is regular right through, which makes it a good early one to conjugate without any surprises.

Listen: mudar

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Sound it out

mu An m and a rounded "oo." The vowel is unstressed but keeps its full rounding — English would want to reduce it, and Portuguese doesn't.

dar A hard d, since an a follows rather than an i, then the loud wide vowel. This syllable is pronounced exactly like the standalone verb "dar," right down to the vanishing r.

Hear it in a sentence

Ela mudou de ideia.

She changed her mind.

Listen: Ela mudou de ideia.

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"Ela mudou de ideia" uses the past tense, where the -ou ending flattens to a plain "oh" in Brazil, so it's "moo-DOH." The phrase "mudar de ideia" is fixed and takes "de," pronounced "djee," and "ideia" itself is three syllables with a stressed "ei" diphthong: ee-DAY-ah.

Where English speakers slip

English speakers front-stress it and add a y-glide, giving "MYOO-dar," which is doubly wrong — Portuguese has no glide there and the weight goes on the end. The construction is the other trap: "mudar de" for changing something abstract like your mind or your clothes, but "mudar" alone or "se mudar" for moving house, and the reflexive version catches learners out.