Portuguese nasal vowels: what they are and how to say them

European Portuguese has five nasal vowels, [ɐ̃], [ẽ], [ĩ], [õ] and [ũ], and four nasal diphthongs: [ɐ̃w̃] as in pão, [ɐ̃j̃] as in mãe and bem, [õj̃] as in põe, and [ũj̃] in muito. A nasal vowel is an ordinary vowel with air going out through the nose as well as the mouth. It is written with a tilde, or with an m or n after the vowel.

The one thing to remember: that m or n is a spelling, not a sound. Ciberdúvidas is explicit that no nasal consonant is pronounced after a nasal vowel in European Portuguese; the nasality belongs to the vowel. Simis [ˈsĩ], not “seem”. Bomis [ˈbõ], not “bomb”. Most English speakers make these sounds reasonably well and then spoil them by closing the mouth or touching the tongue to the roof of the mouth at the end.

What are the five Portuguese nasal vowels?

Every transcription below is from the Infopédia dictionary, which gives the European Portuguese pronunciation for each word, with an audio button you can use to check your own attempt.

Two details are easy to miss. The nasal a is not the open [a] of lábut the closed, central [ɐ], roughly the vowel in “cup”, with the nose open. And the nasal e is closed [ẽ], never the open vowel of pé.

What are the nasal diphthongs?

A nasal diphthong is a nasal vowel that glides into a nasal [w̃] or [j̃], so both halves are nasal. European Portuguese has four.

Muito is the odd one out: nothing in the spelling says it is nasal. Ciberdúvidas explains that the nasality spreads from the initial m, and is marked in the pronunciation, not on the page. Say it “mũitu”, with the whole first syllable through the nose; a plain oral “mooey-too” is one of the surest signs of a learner.

Which spellings tell you a vowel is nasal?

The rules are regular enough to read aloud with confidence.

• A tilde on a or o: lã, irmã, pão, mãe, põe. The tilde normally also marks the stressed syllable when there is no other accent: irmão [irˈmɐ̃w̃].
• M or n before another consonant, in the same word: campo, tempo, lindo, conto, mundo. By convention it is m before p and b, and n before anything else.
• M at the end of a word: sim, som, um, atum, and bem / homem with the diphthong. The 1990 Spelling Agreement (Base VI) sets this out: a final nasal vowel is written with a tilde if it is an a, with m for any other vowel, and with n before a plural s, as in bons, homens.
• Final -am on verbs is [ɐ̃w̃], the same diphthong as pão, but unstressed: falam, cantam.

What does not make a nasal vowel: an m, n or nh followed by a vowel. In cama [ˈkɐmɐ] the m starts the next syllable and is pronounced as a normal consonant, and Infopédia transcribes the a as oral. Compare cama with campo [ˈkɐ̃pu], where the m is silent and the vowel is nasal.

How do you make a nasal vowel as an English speaker?

1. Start from the oral vowel. Say a clean “ee” for sim, a pure “o” for bom, the short “u” of “cup” for lã.
2. Open the nose without moving the tongue or lips.Hold the vowel and let air leak through the nose, the way English speakers say “uh-uh” with the mouth nearly closed. Your tongue stays down; your lips stay open.
3. Stop there.End the word on the vowel. No “n”, no “ng”, no closed lips for “m”.
4. Check with your fingers. Pinch your nose and say the word. An oral vowel sounds the same pinched or not; a nasal vowel changes, because the air you were sending through the nose is blocked.

For pão, mão and não, start from that nasal [ɐ̃] and glide toward a nasal “oo”, still without closing anything. The result is shorter and more closed than the “ow” of “cow”. For mãe and bem, glide from the same nasal [ɐ̃] toward a nasal “ee”.

What are the most common mistakes?

Adding a hard n or ng

By far the most common. English speakers read sim as “seem”, tempo as “tem-po” and nãoas “nown”, or turn nasal vowels into “-ng” as in “song”. The tongue should never touch the roof of the mouth at the end of a nasal vowel.

Dropping the nasality

The opposite error: saying pão like pau, or mão like mau. Several of these are real words, so the mistake can change your meaning. See the minimal pairs below.

Reducing unstressed nasal vowels

Unstressed oral vowels shrink in European Portuguese, but in the standard pronunciation unstressed nasal vowels do not. Ciberdúvidas notes that nasality blocks the reduction rule. Infopédia gives jantar as [ʒɐ̃ˈtar], sentido as [sẽˈtidu] and montanhaas [mõˈtɐɲɐ]: the first vowel keeps its full quality, just nasal. (Some northern speakers do reduce them, saying something like “cuntinuar” for continuar; our Lisbon vs Porto accent guide covers regional differences.)

Nasalizing before a vowel

Making the a of cama or the o of sono [ˈsonu] fully nasal, as if they were campo or som. When the m or n starts the next syllable, pronounce it as a consonant and keep the vowel before it oral.

Nasal vowels are one entry in a longer list; our guide to common pronunciation mistakes covers the rest.

Minimal pairs to practice

Each pair differs only in nasality. Say them aloud, record yourself, and compare with the Infopédia audio. Better still, have a Portuguese speaker say one of each pair at random and see if you can tell which.

Notice that in lá / lã and mata / manta the vowel quality changes too, from open [a] to central [ɐ̃]. That is part of the target, not a side effect.

A short daily drill

• One minute of pairs. Read the table above twice, slowly, then at normal speed.
• One minute of high-frequency words. não, sim, bem, também, muito, um, bom dia, mãe, pão. You will say these every day in Portugal, so they are where good nasal vowels pay off first.
• One sentence, shadowed. Não tenho tempo, mas está tudo bem. Say it along with a native recording until your version and theirs line up.

For how nasal vowels fit with vowel reduction, the two r sounds and the rest of the sound system, see our European Portuguese pronunciation guide. PoisPois lets you read lines like these aloud and hear where your pronunciation went wrong, against European Portuguese voices at natural speed.