Portuguese (Brazil) · Pronunciation Guide

How do you pronounce "o amigo" in Portuguese (Brazil)?

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

o amigo is pronounced with the stress described below. In IPA it is written /u aˈmi.gu/. It means “friend (male).” oo ah-MEE-goo. The article and the noun's first vowel run together with no break between them.

oo ah-MEE-goo. The article and the noun's first vowel run together with no break between them.

o amigo /u aˈmi.gu/

The "mi" takes the accent. The article is worth dwelling on: Portuguese uses it before possessives too, so "o meu amigo" is entirely normal where English would never say "the my friend." Brazilians often drop it in that construction, but both versions are correct.

Listen: o amigo

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Sound it out

o Say "oo," not "oh." The noun begins with a vowel too, so the two words glide together without the glottal catch English would insert.

a An unstressed open "ah" opening the noun. In connected speech this and the article often blur into a single rounded-then-open glide.

mi A simple m opening a syllable — so nothing nasalizes — and then the stressed high "ee." This is the loud centre of the word.

go Hard g before the o, and the o behind it raised to "oo." Before an e or i the same letter would be a soft "zh," so the vowel is doing the deciding.

Hear it in a sentence

Meu amigo chega hoje.

My friend is arriving today.

Listen: Meu amigo chega hoje.

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"Meu amigo chega hoje" omits the article before the possessive, which is the more common Brazilian choice. "Chega" opens with "sh," and "hoje" has a silent h — so the two words link across what looks on the page like a consonant boundary but is actually vowel to vowel.

Where English speakers slip

English speakers insert a glottal stop between the article and the noun, chopping "o amigo" into two separate pieces. Brazilians glide through. The unraised final o is the second habit. And note that "amigo" is warmer in Portuguese than "friend" is in English — Brazilians use it as a form of address to strangers, roughly like "mate."