Portuguese (Brazil) · Pronunciation Guide

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

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

tchau is pronounced with the stress described below. In IPA it is written /ˈtʃaw/. It means “bye.” CHOW, rhyming with English "now." It's the Italian "ciao" respelled with Portuguese letters.

CHOW, rhyming with English "now." It's the Italian "ciao" respelled with Portuguese letters.

tchau /ˈtʃaw/

One syllable, so there's no choice to make — but note the word is a diphthong-final monosyllable, and Portuguese leaves those unaccented in writing. The spelling with tch instead of the native ch is itself a clue that this is an import, taken from Italian by way of the huge Italian immigration to São Paulo.

Listen: tchau

Free browser voice. Hear it read by a real native speaker inside the LingoDrop app.

Sound it out

tch This three-letter cluster spells the sound at the start of English "chair." Portuguese normally uses ch for "sh," so when Brazilians needed a true ch sound for this borrowed word they wrote t plus ch to force it.

au An open "ah" sliding into a w glide, exactly the vowel of "cow." The u is not a separate syllable; the whole word is one beat from start to finish.

Hear it in a sentence

Tchau, até amanhã!

Bye, see you tomorrow!

Listen: Tchau, até amanhã!

Free browser voice. Hear it read by a real native speaker inside the LingoDrop app.

"Tchau, até amanhã!" pairs the goodbye with a phrase ending in the tilde nasal ã. "Amanhã" is a triple challenge: an nh in the middle, a stressed final nasal vowel, and no lip closure at the end. The whole farewell has a falling-then-rising melody that's worth copying whole.

Where English speakers slip

Readers who have learned that Portuguese ch equals "sh" over-apply the rule and say "tshau" or even "shau." The t is there precisely to block that: this one word really does start with the English ch sound. The other mistake is over-lengthening the vowel into "chah-oo," two beats, when it should be as quick as English "chow."