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Portuguese (Brazil) · Pronunciation Guide
How do you pronounce "ou" in Portuguese (Brazil)?
OH. A single closed vowel — the two letters have merged into one sound in Brazil.
A single unstressed conjunction that leans on the phrases it joins. Unlike "o," the article, it doesn't raise to "oo" — the ou spelling produces a closed "oh" and stays there. So two words that both come out as a single rounded vowel are nonetheless distinguishable, one high and one mid.
Listen: ou
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Sound it out
Hear it in a sentence
Você quer café ou chá?
Do you want coffee or tea?
Listen: Você quer café ou chá?
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"Você quer café ou chá?" places the conjunction between two accented monosyllables, and both "café" and "chá" carry acutes marking stressed final vowels. The "ou" sits unstressed between them, which makes its shortness and its closed quality easy to hear by contrast.
Where English speakers slip
Pronouncing both letters gives "OH-oo," two beats where there is one. English speakers also read it as the "ow" of "loud," which is a completely different vowel. And there's a spelling danger: "ou" meaning or looks identical to the ou inside "vou" or "sou," so learners sometimes parse sentences wrongly at first glance.