How to Pronounce 'Último': Portuguese (Brazil) Pronunciation Guide

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

último is pronounced with the stress described below. In IPA it is written /ˈuw.tʃi.mu/. It means “last.” OOW-tchee-moo. Three syllables, the accent up front, an l that becomes a w, and a "tchee" in the middle.

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

OOW-tchee-moo. Three syllables, the accent up front, an l that becomes a w, and a "tchee" in the middle.

último /ˈuw.tʃi.mu/

This is a proparoxytone — stressed three syllables from the end — and Portuguese writes an accent on every single one of them without exception, because no default rule reaches back that far. The same is true of "médico," "sábado" and "ônibus." If you see a word stressed that early, there will always be a mark on it.

Listen: último

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Sound it out

úl The accent marks this as the loud syllable, and the l closing it vocalizes completely to a w. So the opening is a rounded "oo" gliding into another rounded sound, with no tongue contact whatsoever.

ti Here the t meets an i and becomes "tch," as it always does in Brazil. Even in an unstressed middle syllable the change applies — palatalization is triggered by the vowel, not by position or stress.

mo An ordinary m and a final "oo." Each syllable is quieter than the last, so the word trails away after its accented opening.

Hear it in a sentence

Este é o último pedaço do bolo.

This is the last piece of cake.

Listen: Este é o último pedaço do bolo.

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"Este é o último pedaço do bolo" links "o último" so that the article's "oo" runs straight into the word's own "oo" — the two nearly merge. "Pedaço" then gives you a cedilla forcing an s before an o, and "do bolo" is the de-plus-article contraction.

Where English speakers slip

Two Brazilian features get missed at once: learners say "UL-tee-moh" with a real l and a hard t. It should be "OOW-tchee-moo." Spanish speakers have the identical word spelled the same way, with neither change, so the interference is strong. The accent itself is also frequently dropped in writing, which is a genuine spelling error in Portuguese.