The Portuguese Alphabet: Letters, Sounds, and Accents

How many letters are in the Portuguese alphabet?

The modern Portuguese alphabet has 26 letters, exactly the same 26 you already use in English. That was not always the official count. For most of the twentieth century, Portuguese schools and dictionaries taught a 23 letter alphabet that left out k, w, and y, treating them as foreign symbols rather than true Portuguese letters. You would still see them constantly, in words like quilometro when abbreviated as km, in foreign names, and in loanwords like watt and yoga, but they sat outside the official alphabet.

That changed with the 1990 Orthographic Agreement, a treaty signed by Portuguese speaking countries to unify spelling rules across Brazil, Portugal, and the rest of the Lusophone world. Brazil put the agreement into effect in 2009, and Portugal and other countries followed on their own timelines shortly after. One of the changes was formally welcoming k, w, and y back into the alphabet, bringing the total to 26 and matching the English alphabet letter for letter, even though several of those letters still appear mostly in loanwords, abbreviations, symbols, and foreign proper names rather than in native Portuguese vocabulary.

So if you ever see an older textbook or an older native speaker mention 23 letters, they are not wrong, they are describing the alphabet as it stood before 2009. For learning purposes today, hold on to 26. The five vowels are a, e, i, o, and u, just as you would expect, and the rest are consonants, including the three letters that rejoined more recently. None of this changes how any word is actually pronounced, it only affects how the alphabet itself is defined and taught.

The full Portuguese alphabet with names and sounds

Here is every letter, its Portuguese name, a plain pronunciation of that name, the sound it usually makes, and a real word that shows it in action. A few letters change sound depending on the vowel next to them or the country you are in, and the notes below the table flag the ones worth watching. If you want a deeper walkthrough of these sounds with more drills, our Portuguese pronunciation guide goes further than a single table can.

A few notes on the names themselves. K is sometimes called "capa" instead of "cá," W is sometimes said as "dábliu" instead of "dáblio," and Y is often called "i grego," meaning "Greek i," instead of "ípsilon." All three are regional habits rather than mistakes, so do not be surprised if a Brazilian and a Portuguese speaker say these three letter names slightly differently. Every other letter name is stable across the Portuguese speaking world.

The oral vowels: open and closed

Portuguese has five vowel letters, a, e, i, o, and u, but unlike Spanish, several of them can be pronounced two different ways, an open version and a closed version, and the difference genuinely changes words. This is one of the first real adjustments an English speaker has to make, because English vowels shift constantly and unpredictably, while Portuguese vowels shift in a specific, learnable pattern tied to stress and spelling.

The letters e and o are the ones that split. An open e sounds close to the "eh" in "bet," and a closed e sounds closer to "ay" without the glide, more like a clipped version of the vowel in "gate." An open o sounds close to the "aw" in "law," and a closed o sounds closer to a clipped version of "oh." The clearest example most learners meet early is the word pair avó, meaning grandmother, said with an open o, against avô, meaning grandfather, said with a closed o. Same spelling apart from the accent mark, same consonants, completely different meaning riding entirely on whether that o is open or closed.

A and i and u are simpler. A is generally an open "ah" like the a in "father," i is an "ee" like the ee in "see," and u is an "oo" like the oo in "food." These three do not split into open and closed pairs the way e and o do, which makes them a relatively safe place to build confidence before tackling the trickier pair.

• a, open "ah", as in casa (house), said KAH-zah
• e, open "eh" or closed clipped "ay", as in elefante (elephant), said eh-leh-FAHN-chee
• i, "ee", as in filho (son), said FEE-lyoo
• o, open "aw" or closed clipped "oh", as in olho (eye), said OH-lyoo
• u, "oo", as in uva (grape), said OO-vah

The other big habit to unlearn is the English glide. Say the English word "go" slowly and you will hear your mouth slide from "oh" toward "oo" at the end. Portuguese vowels, like Spanish ones, do not glide that way in their pure form. A Portuguese closed o stops cleanly, without sliding into a "w" sound at the end. Keeping vowels short and stopping them cleanly, rather than letting them drift, is most of what separates a clear Portuguese vowel from an accented one, and it is exactly the kind of habit that only changes when you say words out loud repeatedly rather than only read about them.

Nasal vowels and nasal diphthongs

Nasal vowels are the single biggest new skill in Portuguese pronunciation for most English speakers, because English does not have true nasal vowels the way Portuguese does. A nasal vowel is a vowel sound where air escapes partly through the nose while you say it, rather than only through the mouth, which gives the sound a distinct hum underneath it. Portuguese uses nasal vowels constantly, in extremely common words, so this is not a rare or optional sound to skip.

You can spot a nasal vowel in writing two ways. The first is the til, the wavy line over a or o, giving you ã and õ, as in maçã, apple, or põe, puts. The second, more common way, is a vowel followed by m or n at the end of a syllable, which nasalizes the vowel before it even though the m or n itself is barely pronounced as a separate consonant. In bem, well, and um, one or a, the vowel is nasalized and the final m mostly just signals that nasalization rather than being said as a full English m.

Nasal sounds also combine into nasal diphthongs, where a nasalized vowel glides into another vowel, all through the nose. The two you will meet constantly are ão, as in não, no, pão, bread, and coração, heart, and ãe, as in mãe, mother, and pães, the plural of bread. There is also õe, as in aviões, airplanes, and lições, lessons. These diphthongs are worth learning as whole units, almost like their own sound, rather than trying to build them up piece by piece from separate vowels.

• não, no, said roughly NOWNG, with a nasal ão
• pão, bread, said roughly POWNG
• mãe, mother, said roughly MY-ng, with a nasal ãe
• bem, well, said roughly BAYNG, nasalized by the final m
• um, one or a, said roughly OONG, nasalized by the final m
• também, also, said roughly tam-BAYNG

The practical way in is imitation rather than rules. Try humming gently through your nose while saying an English vowel, the way your voice naturally nasalizes before an m or n in words like "hum" or "sang," and you will feel roughly what a Portuguese nasal vowel is doing. Then listen to native speakers say não, pão, and bem many times, and try to match the hum, not just the vowel. This is exactly the kind of sound that resists being learned from a page and rewards being said out loud, over and over, with something correcting you when the nasal quality is missing or too weak, which is a gap our guide to improving Portuguese pronunciation is built to help close.

Accent marks: á, â, ã, à, and ç

Portuguese uses five diacritical marks, and each one does a specific job rather than being interchangeable decoration. Getting comfortable with what each mark means removes a surprising amount of guesswork from reading Portuguese aloud.

• Acute accent (á, é, í, ó, ú), a stroke leaning right, marks stress on an irregular syllable and signals an open vowel for e and o. Example: café, coffee, stressed on the final syllable.
• Circumflex (â, ê, ô), a small roof shape, also marks stress but signals a closed vowel for e and o. Example: você, you, with a closed final e.
• Til (ã, õ), the wavy line, marks a nasal vowel, as covered in the previous section. Example: maçã, apple.
• Grave accent (à), a stroke leaning left, marks crasis, the contraction of the preposition a with the article a, and does not change the sound much, mostly signaling a slightly longer, held vowel. Example: à noite, at night.
• Cedilla (ç), the small hook under a c, forces a soft "s" sound in front of a, o, or u, where a plain c would otherwise be hard like a "k." Example: cabeça, head, and açúcar, sugar.

The acute and circumflex accents both mark stress, so a beginner's first instinct is often to treat them as the same mark, but the open versus closed distinction they carry is real and sometimes changes meaning entirely, exactly as avó and avô showed earlier in this guide. When you see an accent mark on a word, read it as two pieces of information at once: which syllable to stress, and, for e and o, whether the vowel should be open or closed.

The cedilla deserves its own callout because it is easy to misread as decorative when it is actually doing structural work. Remember that c is already soft, an s sound, in front of e and i on its own, which is why you will never see a cedilla before those two vowels. The cedilla only ever shows up before a, o, or u, precisely because c would default to a hard k sound there without it. Moça, young woman, needs the cedilla to keep its s sound, while moca on its own, without the cedilla, would read with a hard k.

Digraphs: lh, nh, ch, and rr

A digraph is two letters working together to spell one sound, and Portuguese has four that matter a lot, none of which sound the way an English speaker would guess from the letters alone. Getting these four right fixes a large share of beginner mispronunciations in a single pass.

LH: a palatal l

Lh spells a palatal l sound, made by pressing the middle of your tongue against the roof of your mouth, close to the "lli" in the English word "million" said quickly. You hear it in filho, son, said FEE-lyoo, and trabalho, work, said trah-BAH-lyoo. There is no single English letter for this sound, which is why it needs its own two letter combination.

NH: a palatal n

Nh spells a palatal n, the same tongue position as lh but nasal instead of lateral, close to the "ny" in "canyon" or the Spanish ñ. You hear it in banho, bath, said BAN-yoo, and amanhã, tomorrow, said ah-mah-NYAH. If you have studied Spanish, this is the same sound as the Spanish enye, just written with two letters instead of one.

CH: always sh, never church

This is the digraph that trips up the most people, including learners coming from Spanish. In Portuguese, ch is always pronounced sh, exactly like the sh in "shoe," never like the ch in the English word "church" and never like the Spanish ch in "mucho." Chuva, rain, is said SHOO-vah, and chave, key, is said SHAH-vee. The safest habit is to mentally relabel every Portuguese ch as sh the moment you see it, because your instinct from English or Spanish will keep pulling you toward the wrong sound otherwise.

RR: a strong, often guttural r

Double r spells a strong version of the Portuguese r, distinct from the quick tap you get from a single r between vowels. In Brazil this strong r commonly sounds like an English h, so carro, car, often comes out closer to KAH-hoo. In Portugal it is more often a trilled or uvular r, closer to a French r. Either way, it is a noticeably stronger, harsher sound than the light tap of a single r between vowels, and word initial r behaves the same way as rr even though it is written with just one letter.

• filho (son), FEE-lyoo, lh as a palatal l
• banho (bath), BAN-yoo, nh as a palatal n
• chuva (rain), SHOO-vah, ch as sh
• carro (car), KAH-hoo in Brazil, strong rr
• queijo (cheese), KAY-zhoo, qu with a silent u
• guerra (war), GEH-hah, gu with a silent u

Two more combinations round this out. Qu before e or i is usually a silent u holding a hard k sound, as in queijo, cheese, said KAY-zhoo, matching the same pattern Spanish uses. Gu before e or i works the same way, keeping g hard and silencing the u, as in guerra, war, said GEH-hah. Before the 1990 spelling reform, Portuguese sometimes marked an unusual pronounced u in these groups with two dots, a trema, as in the old spelling of a word like qüestão, but the reform dropped the trema entirely, so modern Portuguese no longer marks that exception in writing.

Brazilian vs European Portuguese pronunciation

Portuguese is one language with two major pronunciation traditions that diverge more than most people expect before they start learning, roughly on the scale of the difference between American and British English, arguably a bit further. Neither version is more correct, and most study materials, including SPAIKING, let you pick which one you want to build toward. Here are the differences that matter most for how the language actually sounds.

Vowel clarity

Brazilian Portuguese tends to pronounce unstressed vowels fully and openly, which gives it a rounder, more melodic, evenly paced rhythm that many learners find easier to parse by ear at first. European Portuguese reduces or drops a large share of unstressed vowels, compressing words and giving the accent a faster, more clipped, consonant heavy feel. Learners who start with Brazilian audio often find European Portuguese sounds noticeably faster and mumbled at first, even at the same actual speaking speed, purely because of how much gets swallowed.

S at the end of a syllable

In Brazil, an s at the end of a syllable is generally said as a plain s sound, as in English. In much of Portugal, that same syllable final s shifts to a sh sound, so a word like "dois," two, can sound close to "doish" in a Lisbon accent. Neither pronunciation is wrong, they are simply the standard patterns of two different regions.

L at the end of a syllable

Brazilian Portuguese commonly turns a syllable final l into a w sound, a process called vocalization, so Brasil sounds close to brah-ZEEW and mal, bad, sounds close to MAH-oo. European Portuguese keeps that l as a genuine dark l consonant, closer to the l you would hear in English "well." This is one of the more noticeable, instantly recognizable differences between the two accents.

T and D before I

In most Brazilian accents, t and d turn into tch and dj sounds right before the vowel i, so tio, uncle, sounds like TCHEE-oo, and dia, day, sounds like DJEE-ah. European Portuguese keeps a plain t and d in the same position, so tio stays closer to TEE-oo. This single feature is one of the fastest ways to tell a Brazilian and a European Portuguese speaker apart by ear, and it is worth deciding early which target accent you are aiming for so you build one consistent habit rather than a mix of both.

None of these differences make one variety harder or easier overall, they are just different places the same underlying language settled. Pick the one tied to your goals, whether that is travel, family, or work, and stay consistent while you are building your ear and your mouth, since mixing features from both accents at random is what actually sounds inconsistent to native listeners, far more than fully committing to either one.

Consonants that surprise English speakers

Beyond the digraphs and the two Portuguese traditions, a few individual consonants behave in ways that catch English speakers off guard on the page. Knowing these in advance saves a lot of trial and error.

S between vowels turns into z

When s sits between two vowels inside a word, it is voiced into a z sound, not a plain s. Casa, house, is said KAH-zah, not KAH-sah. This is exactly why double s exists as a separate spelling: passo, step, keeps its voiceless s sound because the double letter blocks the voicing rule that single s between vowels follows.

X is genuinely unpredictable

X is the least consistent letter in Portuguese spelling, and it is worth simply memorizing per word rather than expecting a rule. It can be sh, as in xadrez, chess, said shah-DRESS. It can be ks, as in fixo, fixed, said FEEK-soo. It can be a plain s, as in the informal pronunciation of texto in fast speech. It can even be z, as in exame, exam, said eh-ZAH-mee. There is no shortcut here beyond learning common words as you meet them.

J and soft G are the same sound

Unlike Spanish, where j is a throaty sound from the back of the throat, Portuguese j is a soft "zh" sound, like the s in the English word "measure." G before e or i makes the exact same zh sound, so jogo, game, and gelo, ice, share the same opening consonant sound despite starting with different letters. This is a genuinely easier pattern than Spanish's throaty j for most English speakers to produce.

D and T can palatalize before I

As covered in the Brazilian versus European section above, many Brazilian accents turn d and t into dj and tch sounds specifically before the vowel i, so dia, day, and tio, uncle, get an extra consonant flavor that is not obvious from the spelling. This is worth knowing early so it does not feel like a mistake the first time you hear it in native audio.

Working through consonants like these is exactly the kind of detail that a written guide can only take you partway on. Our roundup of common Portuguese pronunciation mistakes covers the specific errors English speakers make most often with these sounds, and pairing that reading with real spoken practice is what actually fixes them.

Common confusions and how to avoid them

A short, practical list of the mix-ups that catch nearly every beginner reading Portuguese aloud for the first time, each with the fix that clears it up.

1. Reading ch as the English church sound. Portuguese ch is always sh. Relabel it in your head the moment you see it.
2. Skipping the nasal quality on ão, ãe, and õe. These are not just a plain vowel followed by a faint n. Push real air through your nose on them.
3. Treating the acute and circumflex accents as identical. Both mark stress, but acute means open and circumflex means closed, and the difference can change meaning, as in avó and avô.
4. Missing the cedilla's job. Ç before a, o, or u keeps the s sound. Drop it and the word reads with a hard k instead.
5. Pronouncing s as s everywhere. Between vowels it becomes z, as in casa. Only single s at the start of a word or next to a consonant stays a plain s.
6. Using an English or Spanish j sound. Portuguese j and soft g are a gentle zh, like the s in "measure," never a hard English j and never a throaty Spanish j.
7. Forgetting that qu and gu usually hide a silent u. Queijo is KAY-zhoo, not kweh-ZHOO, and guerra is GEH-hah, not gweh-RAH.
8. Mixing Brazilian and European features at random. Pick one accent to aim for and keep your s, l, t, and d sounds consistent with it, rather than blending both.

Almost every item on that list is about a spelling habit imported from English or Spanish rather than a genuinely hard new mouth movement. That is good news, because it means most of the fix is awareness plus repetition, not months of physical practice, with the real exception of the nasal vowels and the two r sounds, which do need dedicated spoken drilling to become automatic.

Spelling out loud and simple practice

Spelling a word aloud, soletrar in Portuguese, comes up more than beginners expect, whether you are giving your name at a hotel desk, confirming an email address, or clarifying a word a listener misheard. Knowing the letter names cold, and being able to add "com til" for a nasalized letter or "com acento" for an accented one, keeps you steady in exactly the moment beginner confidence tends to wobble.

Beyond spelling, here is simple, structured practice that reinforces everything above without needing any special materials.

• Read short word lists aloud daily. Pick ten words that include a nasal vowel, a digraph, or an accented letter, and read them out loud slowly, then again at natural speed.
• Practice minimal pairs. Say avó and avô back to back, or casa and caça, house and hunt, back to back, and feel the difference in your mouth, not just hear it.
• Record yourself and compare. Record a short passage, then listen back next to a native recording of the same words, and note exactly where your nasal vowels or your r sound thin out.
• Say numbers and your own name in Portuguese. These come up constantly in real conversation and are a natural place to drill accented letters and nasal endings you will actually use.
• Shadow a short native clip. Play a sentence or two from a native speaker, pause, and repeat it, copying not just the words but the rhythm and the open, closed, and nasal vowel qualities.

The common thread is that every one of these is spoken practice, not silent reading. Letters and accent rules explain what a native speaker's mouth is doing, but only saying the words yourself, many times, with something correcting the specific sounds that are off, actually changes how you sound. Reading this guide is the map. Saying the words out loud, ideally with feedback, is the part that turns the map into a skill, which is also the focus of our guide on how to practice speaking Portuguese.

How to memorize the Portuguese alphabet

Learning the Portuguese alphabet is genuinely light work compared with most of the language, and you can get comfortable with the letter names in a couple of days if you go about it the right way. The trap is treating it as something to read silently. The alphabet is a set of sounds you produce, not a fact you store, so it needs to pass through your ears and your mouth, not just your eyes.

• Say the letter names out loud from day one. Recite a, bê, cê, dê and onward slowly and repeatedly. Silent reading builds recognition, not the ability to produce the names on demand, which is what you need when someone asks you to spell something.
• Focus your time on the exceptions. Most letters need almost no work. Spend your effort on the handful that differ from English: the open and closed e and o, the nasal vowels, lh, nh, ch, the two r sounds, and the cedilla.
• Anchor each tricky sound to one word. Tie lh to filho, nh to banho, ch to chuva, and the cedilla to açúcar. A sound linked to a concrete word sticks far better than a sound floating alone.
• Practice nasal vowels on their own. Set aside a few minutes just for não, pão, bem, and mãe, since this is the single newest skill in the whole alphabet and deserves dedicated repetition.
• Spell real things. Spell your own name, your street, and a few everyday Portuguese words out loud. It turns an abstract list of letter names into a skill you can actually use.
• Space your practice over several days. A few focused minutes today, tomorrow, and again in a few days beats one long cram session, and the letter names will settle in with surprisingly little total effort.

The single highest value habit on that list is saying everything out loud rather than only reading it. A learner who spells and pronounces the alphabet aloud for ten minutes across a handful of days will own it more completely than one who studies a chart silently for an hour, because only the first learner actually practiced the skill of producing the sounds on demand. If you want to go from letters to full conversation, our guide on how to learn Portuguese lays out where alphabet and pronunciation work fits into a complete study plan, and how to introduce yourself in Portuguese gives you a natural first place to use these sounds in real sentences.

Practicing the sounds out loud

You can memorize every letter name, every accent rule, and every digraph on this page and still freeze the first time you have to produce a nasal vowel or a strong r in a live conversation, because knowing a sound and producing it under the mild pressure of real speech are two different skills. Nasal vowels, the palatal lh and nh, and the two r sounds are physical mouth movements that your body has to learn by doing, not facts your brain can simply file away.

That means the only real path from this page to speaking clearly is speaking, repeatedly, with feedback on the specific sounds you are still getting wrong. The trouble is that speaking practice usually needs a patient partner willing to let you repeat não or carro a dozen times while you chase the right sound, and that partner is not always available exactly when you have ten free minutes. Plenty of learners retreat into flashcards and silent reading instead, which quietly leaves the actual pronunciation stuck exactly where it started.

This is precisely the gap an AI speaking partner is built to close. SPAIKING gives you someone to talk to whenever you have a few minutes, one that never tires of hearing the same word repeated and never judges a flat nasal vowel or a missed cedilla, so you can drill these sounds out loud and get corrected in the moment rather than weeks later.

• Say the letters and words aloud and get corrected. Practice nasal vowels, lh, nh, ch, and the two r sounds in real words, and find out immediately when a nasal quality is too weak or a ch slipped into an English church sound.
• Move from letters to whole sentences. Isolated sounds are a warm up. Producing them inside full Portuguese sentences at natural speed is what makes them automatic, and that only happens with a live conversation partner to rehearse against.
• Choose your target accent and stay consistent. Whether you are building toward Brazilian or European Portuguese, speaking practice lets you settle into one set of s, l, t, and d habits rather than drifting between both.
• Practice on your own schedule. Ten minutes most days beats one long session rarely, and having a partner available on demand is what makes that daily habit realistic instead of aspirational.

Think of this guide as the map and speaking practice as the walking. The map lays out every letter, accent, and sound clearly, which genuinely is most of what you need to understand the Portuguese alphabet on paper. But pronunciation only becomes yours by moving your mouth through it, out loud, again and again, ideally with something telling you exactly when a nasal vowel or an r fell short. Study the sounds here, then go say them until they are second nature. You can see how the speaking side works on the pricing page, browse more foundations in our Portuguese conversation practice guide, or head back to the SPAIKING home page to start talking today.