Portuguese (Brazil) · Pronunciation Guide

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

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

o sabonete is pronounced with the stress described below. In IPA it is written /u sa.boˈne.tʃi/. It means “soap.” oo sah-boh-NEH-tchee. Four syllables, and the ending is "tchee."

oo sah-boh-NEH-tchee. Four syllables, and the ending is "tchee."

o sabonete /u sa.boˈne.tʃi/

Four syllables, and the third carries the accent. The long run-up is worth noticing: three of the four vowels are unstressed and Brazilian Portuguese keeps them all clearly audible, which is why the word takes longer to say than an English speaker expects.

Listen: o sabonete

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Sound it out

sa A hissed s opening the word — unvoiced, since nothing precedes it — and an open "ah," unstressed.

bo A bilabial b with the lips closing and a closed "oh." It stays "oh" rather than raising, since raising touches only a word-final unstressed o.

ne An n opening its own syllable, nasalizing nothing, and a closed e carrying the stress. This is the loud beat after two light ones.

te The closing e is heard as "i," which drags the t into "tch." Four syllables in, and the word still ends on the same palatal affricate as "noite" and "leite."

Hear it in a sentence

Acabou o sabonete.

The soap ran out.

Listen: Acabou o sabonete.

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"Acabou o sabonete" puts the verb first, which Portuguese does freely with "acabar" in this sense — the soap ran out. "Acabou" ends in the -ou spelling flattened to a plain "oh," so the sentence links that rounded vowel straight into the article's "oo."

Where English speakers slip

Finishing with a hard t is the reliable error: "sah-boh-NEH-tay." It's "tchee." Learners also raise the second o by association with the ending, when only the word-final one lifts. And note the distinction: "sabonete" is bar soap for the body, while "sabão" is soap for cleaning.