Portuguese (Brazil) · Pronunciation Guide

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

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

tomar is pronounced with the stress described below. In IPA it is written /toˈmah/. It means “to take / to drink.” toh-MAH. The t stays hard, the o is closed, and the final r fades away.

toh-MAH. The t stays hard, the o is closed, and the final r fades away.

tomar /toˈmah/

toh-MAH as an infinitive, TOH-moo in the present. That back-to-front alternation is the basic pulse of every regular -ar verb in the language, and once you can hear it in one word you have it for hundreds.

Listen: tomar

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Sound it out

to A crisp dental t with no puff of air, then a closed "oh" with rounded lips. No palatalization here, since the vowel is an o and not an i-sound.

mar This syllable is identical in sound to the noun "mar," meaning sea, which makes a handy memory hook. Ordinary m, the word's loudest vowel, and an r you can barely detect.

Hear it in a sentence

Vou tomar um banho.

I'm going to take a shower.

Listen: Vou tomar um banho.

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"Vou tomar um banho" is the idiom worth memorizing: Brazilians take a bath rather than have one, and they use "tomar" rather than a verb meaning "take." "Banho" ends in the palatal nh, so it's "BAH-nyoo," and the nasal quality of the preceding "um" runs straight into the b.

Where English speakers slip

The English instinct is "TOH-mar" with front stress and an audible r; both need correcting. The bigger trap is the verb's enormous idiomatic range — tomar covers drinking, taking a shower, catching sun, taking medicine and being careful — so translating it as one English word will constantly leave you stranded. Spanish speakers, whose "tomar" overlaps but not identically, get caught out by exactly this.