Portuguese (Brazil) · Pronunciation Guide

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

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

o país is pronounced with the stress described below. In IPA it is written /u paˈis/. It means “country.” oo pah-EESS. Two syllables — the accent exists specifically to keep the a and i apart.

oo pah-EESS. Two syllables — the accent exists specifically to keep the a and i apart.

o país /u paˈis/

The accent's whole job is to force a hiatus. Without it, "pais" is a real word — the plural of "pai," meaning parents — pronounced as a single syllable rhyming with "mice." The acute on the í splits the vowels apart and moves the stress onto the second one, turning parents into country.

Listen: o país

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Sound it out

o "oo," leading into a noun whose two vowels are deliberately held apart by an accent.

pa A dry p and an open "ah," unstressed, standing as its own complete syllable. It does not glide into the vowel that follows.

ís An accented high "ee" carrying the stress, closed by an s. The acute is there to break what would otherwise be read as the diphthong "ai."

Hear it in a sentence

O Brasil é um país enorme.

Brazil is a huge country.

Listen: O Brasil é um país enorme.

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"O Brasil é um país enorme" uses the article before the country name, which Portuguese requires for most countries — "o Brasil," "a França," though "Portugal" takes none. "Brasil" ends in a vocalized l, giving brah-ZEEW, and its s buzzes because it sits between vowels.

Where English speakers slip

Reading it as one syllable gives "PIE-ss," which is the word for parents and produces genuinely confusing sentences. The accent is not decorative. Learners also drop it in writing, which creates exactly that ambiguity. And remember the country article: "eu moro no Brasil" rather than "em Brasil."