First of all, listen to the audio from Day 2 again.
Welcome to Day 3!
Stresses and Accents
There is no need to stress over accents! Once you learn the ‘rules’ it makes it a lot easier!
Words are split into syllables and one is always more pronounced than the others, in any language, e.g.:
Che–mist – here we stress on the first half of the word
Bat-ter-y – here stress the first syllable, this word has three.
Chemist has two syllables and battery has three. In Portuguese, the general rule is to stress on the second to last syllable. There are exceptions to this rule.
Words ending in L-Z-R ( I call it ‘LaZeR’) are stressed on the last syllable.
Audio
o hospital – the hospital
o animal – the animal
o Natal – (the) Christmas
feliz – happy (Yes, Feliz Natal means Happy Christmas!)
fazer – to make
calor – heat
falar – to speak
We have quite a few accents in Portuguese, these are placed over certain letters and they change the sound of the vowel slightly. (we will learn as we go)
agudo ( ´ )
grave ( ` )
circunflexo ( ^ )
til ( ~ )
Accents
If the word has an accent – we generally stress it on the accent.
Audio. Listen and repeat.
o médico – the doctor
o verão – the summer
Inglês – English
Simpático – kind
The letter ‘h’
In the word trabalho, the ‘h’ sounds like a ‘y’. Think of it as an upside down ‘y’ – ‘ʎ’.
Remember the sound in ‘tenho’?
Audio. Listen and repeat.
trabalho = Tra-ba-lyoo – I work
tenho = te-nyoo – I have
we come across this ‘y’ sound in many other words:
lha – lyeh
a filha – the daughter (filha – fee-lyeh)
lho – lyoo
o filho – the son (filho – fee-lyoo)
nha – nyeh
a minha – my / mine (minha – mee-nya)
nho – nyo
o vinho – the wine (vinho – vee-nho) Not veeno as many people say…
You might feel silly saying these sounds, but the better you can imitate them, the easier it will be to say them. Practice makes perfect!
Nouns, or names of things, are masculine or feminine in Portuguese.
Audio. Listen and repeat.
Masculine: (m)
o homem – the man
o senhor – the gentleman
o menino – the boy
o amigo – the male friend
o carro – the car (double ‘r’ is rolled or spoken like a heavy ‘h’.)
o pai – the father
Note: ‘o’ means ‘the’ (m)
Feminine: (f)
a mulher – the woman
a senhora – the lady
a menina – the girl
a amiga – the female friend
a casa – the house
a mãe – the mother
Note: ‘a’ means ‘the’ (f)
Yes. Write all the above down too 🙂
https://www.separaremsilabas.com/index.php
The link above will take you to a Portuguese website that separates the syllables and also shows where words are stressed in bold. Try it out with some of the words from this lesson!
Don’t forget to the take the quiz!
Hi,
I’m a bit confused about the use of dois or duas, could you explain please?
Anthony
Dois is used for the masculine nouns and duas is used for the feminine nouns. Does than make more sense now?
ex.
um carro / dois carros
uma casa / duas casas
Are there rules about the pronunciation of “R”. The guttaral R like in rua vs. the R in senhor?
Hi Susan!
The letter “r” at the end of the word is not as heavy as the letter “r” in the word “rua”, but the last syllable is stressed.
The letter “r” at the beginning of a word, e.g. “rua” almost sounds like a very heavy “h”, or even the “ch” sound in the scottish word “loch”. The double “rr” also has the same sound. The word “Carro” for example, would use the guttural “r”. I hope this answers your question.