Portuguese (Brazil) · Pronunciation Guide

How do you pronounce "oito" in Portuguese (Brazil)?

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

oito is pronounced with the stress described below. In IPA it is written /ˈoj.tu/. It means “eight.” OY-too. Two syllables, stress on the first, and the final o becomes "oo."

OY-too. Two syllables, stress on the first, and the final o becomes "oo."

oito /ˈoj.tu/

The word ends in -o, so the second-to-last syllable is stressed by default and no accent mark is needed. Here that second-to-last syllable is the diphthong "oi," which means the whole first half of the word is loud and the second half fades — a very typical Portuguese rhythm.

Listen: oito

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Sound it out

oi A closed "oh" running into a y glide, the same vowel as English "boy." It's one syllable despite the two letters, and it carries all the stress in the word.

t A t made against the teeth with no puff of air. It stays hard here because the vowel after it is an o — palatalization to "tch" only happens before an i-sound.

o The final o raises toward "oo," so the word ends quietly on "too." Give it much less time and volume than the opening diphthong.

Hear it in a sentence

São oito da noite.

It's eight at night.

Listen: São oito da noite.

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"São oito da noite" runs "são" straight into "oito," and because "são" ends in a nasal diphthong the nasality bleeds forward onto the following vowel. Then "noite" ends in the same "tchee" palatalization you met in "sete," so the sentence closes on "NOY-tchee."

Where English speakers slip

Reading the vowels separately gives "oh-EE-toh," three beats, which is the classic beginner rendering. It's two beats. English speakers also tend to leave the final o as a full "oh," which sounds stiff; Brazilians raise it to "oo." And don't let the following word's consonant pull the t into a "tch" — this t is hard.