]]>

British Broadcasting CorporationHome 4s272a

Accessibility links

This page has been archived and is no longer updated. Find out more about page archiving.
     

A Guide to Portuguese - The Portuguese alphabet 1n1l4

What's the Portuguese alphabet like? 4wk71

  • Portuguese has a Latin-based alphabet consisting of 26 letters, the same as English
  • You may well have to spell out your name and perhaps your address in Portuguese. Here is the alphabet and how to pronounce it


mp3 - right click and choose 'save target as'

What's significant about the Portuguese alphabet? 2m1j1w

  • Vowels and accents 2b6z4x

    Portuguese has 14 vowel sounds. Accents are used to show their pronunciation: á, â, ã à, ç, é, ê, í, ó, ô, õ, and ú

    These accents also indicate the stressed syllable, eg:
      café, coffee
      você, you (formal)
      mãe, mother

    Nasal vowels are very common and they are represented by the tilde over the vowels a and o:
      canção, song   canções, songs

    The cedila (ç) before -a, - o, and - u sounds the same as ‘s’

     
  • Consonants: 251119

    The letter h is silent in Portuguese

    The letters r, s, z and the combinations nh, lh, ch, rr may prove more challenging, for example:
      rádio, rádios, radio(s)
      sozinho, sozinha, alone
      chamar, to call
      trabalho, work
      correio, mail

    From 1943 k, y and w were considered foreign letters and not included in the official alphabet. They were reintroduced as part of the spelling reform of 2009, but are still mainly found in foreign names and words imported from other languages

    These three letters also have different names in Portugal and Brazil. Respectively:
      k: kapa, ka
      y: i grego, ípsilon
      w: duplo ve, dábliu

     
  • Email and website conventions 1r6w37

      @ arroba
      . ponto, dot
      / barra, forward slash
      - hífen, hyphen

     
Facts about Portuguese. Carnival headdress © Yannik LABBE, fotolia.com

Facts about Portuguese 3f684m

10 things to know about the Portuguese language

Portuguese key phrases. Washing line, the Alfama, Lisbon © BBC

Portuguese key phrases 5l25a

Get started with 20 audio phrases

BBC navigation 435l3t

BBC © 2014 The BBC is not responsible for the content of external sites. Read more.

This page is best viewed in an up-to-date web browser with style sheets (CSS) enabled. While you will be able to view the content of this page in your current browser, you will not be able to get the full visual experience. Please consider upgrading your browser software or enabling style sheets (CSS) if you are able to do so.