Portuguese (Brazil) · Pronunciation Guide

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

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

terminar is pronounced with the stress described below. In IPA it is written /teɦ.miˈnah/. It means “to finish.” teh-mee-NAH. The middle r is a breath, not an English r, and the stress is at the end.

teh-mee-NAH. The middle r is a breath, not an English r, and the stress is at the end.

terminar /teɦ.miˈnah/

A neat demonstration that Portuguese nasalization depends on syllable structure and not on the mere presence of an m or n: this word contains both letters and has no nasal vowels at all, because each one opens a syllable rather than closing one. The stress lands on "-nar."

Listen: terminar

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Sound it out

ter A clean dental t staying hard before the e, a closed vowel, and a syllable-closing r that becomes a soft throat-h. The syllable sounds closer to "teh" with a rasp than to English "ter."

mi An m and a high "ee," unstressed and quick. This vowel is fully oral — the m opens the syllable rather than closing one, so nothing nasalizes.

nar The n opens this syllable rather than closing the previous one, which is why nothing in the word is nasal. It carries the loud wide vowel, and the r afterwards simply fades out.

Hear it in a sentence

Terminei o trabalho.

I finished the work.

Listen: Terminei o trabalho.

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"Terminei o trabalho" uses the past tense, whose -ei ending is a closed e gliding to a y in a single stressed syllable. "O trabalho" then gives you the article as "oo" and the lh as one palatal "ly," so the sentence ends "oo-trah-BAH-lyoo."

Where English speakers slip

The syllable-final r in "ter" is the main hazard, with English speakers producing something that sounds like the start of "terminal." It's breath. Learners also nasalize the second and third syllables by association, when neither is nasal. In casual Brazilian speech "acabar" is often preferred to "terminar," so listening practice should cover both.