Portuguese (Brazil) · Pronunciation Guide

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

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

o animal is pronounced with the stress described below. In IPA it is written /u a.niˈmaw/. It means “animal.” oo ah-nee-MOW. Stress at the end, and the final l turns into a w.

oo ah-nee-MOW. Stress at the end, and the final l turns into a w.

o animal /u a.niˈmaw/

End-stressed, as l-final words are by rule, unmarked — the same pattern as azul, legal and gentil. The plural is "animais," where the vocalized l merges into the plural ending and the spelling changes shape to match a sound change it otherwise hides.

Listen: o animal

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Sound it out

a A short open "ah" with no consonant in front of it, absorbed almost entirely into the article's "oo" in ordinary speech.

ni An n opening its own syllable, so nothing nasalizes, and a short high "ee." Quick and unstressed.

mal An m and a wide-open stressed a, then an l that closes the syllable and therefore vocalizes fully to a w. The ending rhymes with English "cow."

Hear it in a sentence

Meu animal favorito é o cavalo.

My favorite animal is the horse.

Listen: Meu animal favorito é o cavalo.

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"Meu animal favorito é o cavalo" links "meu animal" across the w-glide into the vowel. "Cavalo" then has a single intervocalic l that stays a real l — because it opens a syllable — which is a direct contrast with the vocalized one in "animal."

Where English speakers slip

A real l gives "ah-nee-MAL," which both English and Spanish encourage. It's "MOW." Front-stressing it as "AN-i-mal" is the other English habit. And the plural "animais" is genuinely irregular in spelling, so it needs learning rather than deriving.