Portuguese (Brazil) · Pronunciation Guide

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

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

o leão is pronounced with the stress described below. In IPA it is written /u leˈɐ̃w̃/. It means “lion.” oo leh-OWNG. Two syllables, ending in the -ão nasal diphthong.

oo leh-OWNG. Two syllables, ending in the -ão nasal diphthong.

o leão /u leˈɐ̃w̃/

End-stressed, as every -ão word is, with the tilde marking nasality alone. The plural is "leões," taking the -ões branch, and the feminine is "leoa" — which drops the nasal entirely and adds a syllable, so the two genders sound quite unrelated.

Listen: o leão

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Sound it out

le The l holds full tongue-tip contact since it opens the word, and the closed e behind it stands as its own unstressed syllable. It doesn't glide into what follows.

ão The nasal diphthong: a nasalized central a gliding into a nasalized w, one beat, nasal from start to finish, stopping mid-resonance with nothing to close it.

Hear it in a sentence

O leão é forte.

The lion is strong.

Listen: O leão é forte.

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"O leão é forte" links "leão é" so the nasal glide runs into the open vowel of "é" with no break. "Forte" then delivers an open stressed o, a breathy r and the palatalized "tchee" — so the sentence has a hum at one end and a palatal at the other.

Where English speakers slip

Closing the -ão with an audible g is the reliable error, and squashing "le-ão" into one syllable is the other. Two beats, and the second simply stops. Spanish speakers have "león," whose n is a real consonant — Portuguese puts the nasality inside the vowel instead.