Learning Portuguese - The Alphabet

Learning Portuguese Useful Phraseology

The Portuguese Alphabet

Days, Months & Years

Portuguese Menu Decoder

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Dental Phrases in Portuguese

Portuguese is unfortunately, if you are looking to make Portugal your new home, one of the hardest European languages to learn, due to it's complicated pronunciation and complex grammar. Portuguese is not spoken phonetically and to put yourselves in good stead of becoming fluent it is advisable to master the alphabet before moving on to the tricky grammatical areas. The Portuguese alphabet is more or less the same as the English one though the letters K, W and Y only appear in foreign words adopted into the language such as karate, yoga and western. In Portuguese though you will also have to contend diacritical marks and diphthongs which will help you pronounce words more easily. Taking a little time to look at these and become familiar will in the longer term aid your use of Portuguese.
The Portuguese Alphabet
a	A	em	M
bay	B	en	N
say	C	oh	O
day	D	pay	P
ay	E	kay	Q
ef	F	err	R
jay	G	ess	S
aga	H	tay	T
ee	I	oo	U
jotuh	J	vay	V
el	L	sheesh	X
		zay	Z
Diacritical Marks in Portuguese Alphabet
Diacritical marks are common in the Portuguese language and they provide instruction on how to pronunciate certain words. The diacritical marks utilised in Portuguese are shown below
́	ç	ˆ	`
Acute	Cedilla	Circumflex	Grave

	˜
	Tilde

An acute is places the stress on the syllable.
A cedilla, only used on the letter C gives turns it from a hard sound to soft like an S
A circumflex gives emphasis on the syllable
A grave usually indicates when two words have been merged to form one with the loss of a letter
Diphthongs
Any pair of vowels pronounced as a single syllable is a diphthong. There are a variety of diphthongs in Portuguese and knowing these before you start getting into grammar will no doubt help you to learn the language more quickly.
ão	ow (as in cow)	ai	aye
au	ow (as in cow)	ou	o
ao	ow (as in cow)	ei	a (as in way)
õe	oi	ui	Pronounced as I but only when used immediately after G or Q
oi	oi	ue
ãe	aye

Learning Portuguese - The Alphabet

Learning Portuguese Useful Phraseology

The Portuguese Alphabet

The Portuguese Alphabet

Diacritical Marks in Portuguese Alphabet

Diphthongs