Portuguese (Brazil) · Pronunciation Guide

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

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

o coelho is pronounced with the stress described below. In IPA it is written /u koˈe.ʎu/. It means “rabbit.” oo koh-EH-lyoo. Three syllables — the o and e don't fuse — and lh is one palatal sound.

oo koh-EH-lyoo. Three syllables — the o and e don't fuse — and lh is one palatal sound.

o coelho /u koˈe.ʎu/

Three beats, with the middle one loudest and the first two vowels in hiatus. That split is what makes the word three syllables rather than two, and it's the same structure as "poeta" and "moeda" — Portuguese keeps mid vowels apart where English would glide straight through.

Listen: o coelho

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Sound it out

co The c is hard before the o and a closed "oh," unstressed. It stands as its own complete syllable and doesn't glide into what follows.

e A closed e carrying the stress, with a genuine seam between it and the o in front. Portuguese builds diphthongs around an unstressed i or u, and an o followed by an e can't form one.

lho One palatal consonant, the tongue blade flat against the roof of the mouth. The vowel behind it is heard as "oo," so the ending is "lyoo" and never "l-ho."

Hear it in a sentence

O coelho tem orelhas grandes.

The rabbit has big ears.

Listen: O coelho tem orelhas grandes.

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"O coelho tem orelhas grandes" gives you two lh sounds, in "coelho" and "orelhas," which is excellent ear training. "Tem" adds a nasal diphthong between them, and "grandes" ends on another nasal plus a plural s.

Where English speakers slip

Squashing "co-e" into one syllable gives "KWEH-lyoo," which costs a beat and adds a glide. The lh is the other hurdle, with "ko-EL-ho" being the standard error. Spanish speakers have "conejo," which shares neither structure — its n is absent in Portuguese and its j is a throat sound.