LESSON 04 – DIPHTHONGS
The main thing to know about
Portuguese diphthongs is that each letter keeps its original pronunciation,
i.e. there’s no diphthong that sounds completely different from the separated letters.
An a plus an u will always have the sound of an a and an u
combined, there’ll never be any radical change in pronunciation.
A diphthong is made of one vowel that is pronounced stronger (the vowel itself) and one
that is pronounced weaker (called semivowel). The letters a, e
and o usually work as vowels, and I and u usually work as
semivowels. In order to be a diphthong, the two letters have to be at the same syllable.
There’s no strict rule for Portuguese diphthongs pronunciation
(just pronounce the vowels as they are, one weakly and other strongly), but
there will be given samples for you to understand.
Sometimes one vowel follows another in a word but they’re
not pronounced together; there’s not one vowel stronger than the other, they’re
pronounced with the same intensity. In fact, in this case they are in different
syllables. This is called hiato (hiatus). Compare a word with a
diphthong, pais
(parents), and one with a hiatus, país (country). The
accent can give a good tip in cases like that.
Let’s go to the diphthongs, then:
au as in mau (bad,
adjective, masculine); al in mal, animal (as well as
in the end of syllables and
words) has the same sound
ei as in veia (vein), cantei (I sang)
eu as in eu
(I), seu (your,
yours)
éu as in céu (sky, heaven), mel (honey)
oi as in foi (he was, he went)
iu as in viu (he saw), mil (one thousand)
ão as in mão (hand), coração (heart)
Three vowels at the
same syllable, one in each side working as semivowels and one in the middle working
as the vowel itself:
ual as in igual
(the same as) – notice that l is pronounced like a w
uõe as in saguões (plural, halls)