The Portuguese alphabet
Portuguese uses the 26-letter Latin alphabet plus a generous helping of accent marks: á à â ã ç é ê í ó ô õ ú. The letters are familiar; the sounds are not. The single biggest hurdle is the nasal vowel — pronounced through your nose like the French 'on'. The most important word you'll meet today is olá.
Vowels — open, closed, and nasal
Each vowel has an 'open' and a 'closed' version. The accent tells you which: á is open (like 'a' in 'father'), â is closed (like the 'u' in 'cut'). Same with é (open, like 'e' in 'bet') vs ê (closed). Nasal vowels are written with a tilde — ã, õ — or signalled by a following m/n: mãe (mother), pão (bread), bom (good), sim (yes). Push the air partly through your nose.
Consonants with surprises
lh sounds like the 'lli' in 'million': filho (son) = FEE-lyoo. nh sounds like 'ny' in 'canyon': senhor (sir) = se-NYOR. ç always sounds like 's': março (March), almoço (lunch). ch sounds like English 'sh': chá (tea) = sha. x is unpredictable — sometimes 'sh' (peixe = PAY-shə, fish), sometimes 'z', sometimes 'ks'. Word-initial r and double rr are guttural in Portugal (close to a French 'r'): carro (car), rio (river).
Two registers: Portugal vs Brazil
European Portuguese (pt-PT) and Brazilian Portuguese (pt-BR) write almost the same but sound very different. In Portugal, unstressed vowels are squeezed almost to silence: pequeno sounds like p'KEH-noo. In Brazil, every vowel rings out clearly: pe-KEH-noo. We'll teach you European Portuguese, but we'll flag the Brazilian forms when they differ.
Stress and the accent mark
Default stress is on the second-to-last syllable. When the stress lands somewhere else, an accent goes on the stressed vowel: café = ka-FEH, rápido = RA-pee-doo. The acute (´) marks an open vowel, the circumflex (^) marks a closed one. The tilde (~) marks a nasal vowel and often pulls the stress with it: irmã (sister) = eer-MAN.
