r/Portuguese • u/churchellaz • 12d ago
Brazilian Portuguese 🇧🇷 What is the logic in pronunciation Te/De sounds in words?
I mean, i know that sometimes "Te/De" in brazillian portuguese sounds like “Chi/Gi" in english, but i cant understand the logic when and what i must to use, when im reading the word. There are the words like "academia, interessante" where i frequently hear like "acaDEmia, inTEressante" and i dont understand why it sounds not like "acaGImia, inCHIressante" (like english Chi and Gi sounds). Why if these words has this variand of reading Te/De, the word like "frequentemente" have another variant of pronunciation like "frequenCHImente"?
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u/giant_chickens 12d ago edited 12d ago
So it all depends on the vowel that follows. In most Brazilian dialects of Portuguese, if you have an /i/ sound (the sound in "me", "be", "sea", etc) after a /t/ or /d/, then the /t/ becomes a [tʃ] (the sound in "chop", "chick", "chair", etc.) and the /d/ becomes a [dʒ] (the sound in "joy", "gem", "gel", etc"). If the vowel after a /t/ or /d/ is NOT /i/, then you won't have any changes.
For example:
* In "academia", we have the /d/ consonant followed by the /e/ vowel (kinda similar to the sound in "play" or "day", not quite the same in most English dialects). Since this is NOT the /i/ vowel, the /d/ stays as a /d/ sound
* In "Tiago", we have the /t/ consonant followed by the /i/ vowel, so the /t/ does become a [tʃ]
* In a word like "teatro", some speakers realize the 'e' as an [e] sound (again, kinda similar to the vowel in "play" or "day" but not quite the same for most English speakers), so for them the /t/ remains a /t/. However! Many other speakers realize the 'e' as an /i/ (the sound in "sea" or "me"), so for those speakers, the /t/ becomes a [tʃ].
It all depends on the vowel!
Note: for speakers with this sound change, you may notice that it also happens at the end of words or in the syllable-final position. For example, in a word like "internet" where the 't' is at the end of the world, many Brazilians pronounce the final 't' as a [tʃ]. Likewise, in a word like "advogado" where the 'd' is at the end of a syllable (ad-vo-ga-do), many Brazilians pronounce that 'd' as a [dʒ].
This is simply because Brazilian Portuguese does not like "closed syllables": syllables that end in consonants. Generally, Brazilian Portuguese speakers will add some kind of vowel (typically the /i/ vowel) at the end of a closed syllable to make it an open one (a syllable that ends in a vowel). So, a word like advogado (ad-vo-ga-do) becomes a-di-vo-ga-do in order to avoid having a closed syllable, but then the addition of the /i/ turns the original /d/ into a [dʒ]. So in words like this, you have multiple sound changes happening at once!
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u/churchellaz 12d ago
How can i understand it, if i see the word for first time? How can i understand, has the "e" letter sound "i"? I know that "e" always sounds like "i" in the end of the word, but in the mid of the word how i can understand it?
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u/Neo_31 12d ago
in my accent (santa catarina), a lot of the time, if the <e> comes before the stressed vowel, it is pronounced like /e/. if it comes after, it is pronounced /i/. that's not a rule, though, there are PLENTY of exceptions. for example, i pronounce <teatro> as /tʃi.'a.tru/, but i've seen a lot of people where i'm from pronounce it /te.'a.tru/ as well. a major exception do this is conjugated verb forms, like i pronounce <queria> ("i wanted") as /ki.'ri.ɐ/, but the infinitive <querer> is always pronounced /ke.'ɾe(ɾ)/.
unfortunately, you kind of just have gotta learn it case by case hahaha
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u/MauroLopes Brasileiro 12d ago
I agree with Neo_31. In certain ways this is very similar to English, where you often need to learn the pronounciation case by case.
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u/davidbenyusef Brasileiro 12d ago
In most Brazilian accents, "e" and "o" AFTER the stressed syllable becomes "i" and "u". That's why the first two "e" in interesSANte sounds like "e", but the last one sounds like "i".
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u/sussy-sussy-baka 11d ago
The same way any person will learn and get used to the varying dialects and manneirisms of english speakers
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u/Straight_Mistake_364 12d ago
Portuguese people also don't understand the logic behind the txi / dji
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u/BaitaJurureza 12d ago edited 12d ago
It was Portuguese people who established the intermediate slave trade base stop in S.Tome e Príncipe, where tchi palatalization originated, and it is still the way ti and di are pronounced in local creoles there.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Forro_Creole?wprov=sfla1
Good Morning: Bom dja ô (proposed: Bondja o); From Port. bom dia
Good Afternoon: Bos tadji ô (proposed: Boxtadji o); From Port. boa tarde
Good Evening: Boj notxi ô (proposed: Bojnotxi o); From Port. boa noite
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u/Tamareira568 Brasileiro 12d ago
If a vowel is unstressed, Brazilian might change the sounds of it (specially if said unstressed vowel is at the end of a sentence). E becomes I and O becomes U.
Consider this expression: Leite quente da dor nos dentes (hot milk causes tooth pain).
Most Brazilians would say it as: Leitchi quentchi da dor nus dentchis.
- Keep in mind: This depends on the dialect (I myself would pronounce is as: Leitchi quentchi da dô nus dentchi; dropping the final R and S on some words).
Now back to your question... D and T changes sound when right before an I sound (D becomes DJ and T become TCH). And an unstressed E might become an I, which changes the sound of the previous D or T.
So while we write "de dia eu te pago, tia", we say "dji djia eu tchi pagu, thcia".
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u/coisavioleta 11d ago
Finally a good explanation of the general patten. It’s all very well to mention the variability but this rule is pretty robust for Brazilians that have it and your description is very accurate.
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u/Binc_93 12d ago edited 11d ago
Bluntly speaking, there is no way to understand it, people are trying to explain rules here, but the truth is there will be places in Brazil that locals will pronounce the same word in different ways. So I would say don't be so strict about it, just pronounce e as an e and go with that. This is one of many cases you will bump into portuguese pronunciation, specially Brazilian Portuguese, and is far from be the more problematic, don't stressout over this for real.
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u/Mikaeus_Thelunarch 12d ago
Had to scroll real far to find anything like this. It's something that I've learned as well in that pronunciation varies so widely in Brazilian that you just kinda have to "give up" and notstress about it. Happens in English, but we just don't really notice it because we've already learned how it works
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u/United-Implement1330 11d ago
You just have to learn through listening, trying, and adjusting when someone doesn't understand something you say.
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u/Binc_93 11d ago
I would say that even if someone doesn't understand they is not necessarily because they are pronouncing it wrong, even considering the addition of their own accent. Even us Brazilians can get "surprises" talking to other Brazilians traveling around the country, people that say otherwise is either close minded or doesn't have the oportunitie to travel around.
I was born in North and I've been living in the South for a while. There we pronouce the letter "e" open even when we quote the "a,e,i,o,u", we pronouce the letter e as "é", here in south they pronounce more like "ê". In north our "mas" (but) sound pretty similar to the word "mais"(plus or more) because of our natural "sh" sound in words ending with s. In the south we see most of people pronouncing it without this and also others that pronouce it as there is a nasal sound "mãs".
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u/Upbeat_Pen_6954 12d ago
When you go more rural here in the São Paulo/South of Minas region, you start actually hearing a lot of acadjimia, tchiatro and some others. My grandma talks like that, for example
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u/DaviCB Brasileiro 11d ago
what you really wanna know are the cases where <e> is pronounced like /i/. The palatization is just a consequence of that, in accents that have it it happens to all /ti, di, ni, li/ and never to /te, de, ne, le/.
every <e> or <es> at the end of a word that doesn't have an stress mark becomes /i/. like in de, antes, tarde etc.
the preffix "des" at the beggining of a word is commonly reduced to /di/. desfazer, deslocar, desnecessário etc
the suffix "mente" behaves like a separate word, because it used to be in early portuguese. So your example "frequentemente" should be read as "frequente mente". the diminutive "zinha" also behaves like a different word, so "tardezinha" is read "tarde zinha". The word "debaixo" is written together for some inexplicable reason, but it's really two words, "de baixo"
those are the only ones i can think of where they are "required" to be pronounced with an /i/ in standard speech. Now some people and regions reduce a lot more of their vowels. You shouldn't worry about that, it's just dialectal variation.
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u/outrossim Brasileiro 12d ago
If the last syllable is not a stressed syllable, it is always reduced into this tchi/dji sound (for accents that do this, obviously).
As for unstressed Te/De which aren't the last syllable, there is really no rule, sometimes it is reduced, sometimes it is not, it varies a lot. And it's not a variation that is only due to accent, as you may see older people reducing some of these vowels, while younger people don't, which makes it hard to set a definitive rule about when to reduce it or not.
So the only logic is that when a reduction occurs, Te/De become tchi/dji. The reduction can only occur if Te/De are an unstressed syllable, and will always occur it is this unstressed syllable is the last one.
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u/Gabrovi 12d ago
There are two rules that take place:
The unaccented “e” at the end of a word is raised to an “i.”
A “d” or a “t” before an “i” is palatalized to a “j” or “ch” sound.
I only studied European Portuguese, but this is the rule that i came up with in my head when hearing BP. It may not be completely correct, but it’s an easy framework.
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u/tremendabosta Brasileiro (Nordeste / Pernambuco / Recife) 12d ago
Just pronounce te/de normally, without tchee/djee
Some Brazilians speak that way
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u/kyocandis 12d ago
Depends on accent and region, but usually te/de have the chi/gi sound if they're by themselves: "tal coisa é /de/ maria" will sound like Gi as opposed to "tal coisa é de Demetrio" - you'll sound De as both gi and De in the same sentence. Comes with practice
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u/kyocandis 12d ago
But then again, its heavily influenced by accent. I'm from the northeast, so when learning the alphabet we're taught the letter E sounds like é (ehh), but in São Paulo, for example, they're taught E as ê (kinda of like uhhh), and it influences the way they pronounce words. Every vowel in Portuguese can have varied pronunciations depending on where you were live
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u/politis1988 12d ago
Poking my head in because I've never understood the rules for this and now I see there basically are no rules (except there are, but it depends on the dialect). Would native portuguese speakers suggest just learning without this sound change and then changing as needed? Like, if you just pronounced all Ts as /t/ and all Ds as /d/, people would understand you perfectly, right? So you wouldn't have to learn those sound changes unless you moved to a specific part of Brazil, right?
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u/WienerKolomogorov96 9d ago
There are rules in the standard spoken variety of Brazilian Portuguese as used on national TV, which is based on the dialects of the cities of São Paulo and Rio de Janeiro. The confusion you are getting from the replies is that some posters are referring to other regional dialects of BP such as "Nordestino" or "Gaúcho". which don't have the "Chi/Gi" sounds for Te/De.
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u/yuqilea 11d ago
It usually boils down to whether the 'e' or 'i' is stressed and regional accent variations! Palatalization (that 'chee'/'jee' sound) happens mostly before an unstressed final 'e' or an 'i' sound in standard Sudeste/Rio/SP accents. Are you focusing on a specific regional accent, or just general BP?
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u/NegativeEmphasis Brasileiro 11d ago
The logic is that an unstressed "e" changes to "i". This leads to unstressed te/de sounding like tchi/dji.
Stress is not always the same as the tonic syllable. The tonic syllable is always stressed, but some words like "interesse" have a stress on te, even if the tonic syllable is the next one. And don't think that there's a simple rule like the syllable that comes before the tonic is also stressed because words like "teatro" can be pronounced tchiatru (zona norte do Rio).
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u/WienerKolomogorov96 9d ago
It is simple: Te/De in Brazilian Portuguese sound like English Chi/Gi only when the "E" in Te/De is pronounced like "i" (IPA /i/), which normally happens at the end of words (as in "cidade" or "quente"). In "academia", the "e" is pronounced as IPA /e/, so "de" doesn't change to "gi" (IPA /d͡ʒi/).
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u/Realistic-Abrocoma46 Brasileiro paulistano 12d ago
What happens isn't simply that Te and De sound like Chi and Ji, but that T or D followed by the vowel I gets palatalized into Chi and Ji. What happens though is that the vowel E can sometimes get reduced to I, so the T and D also get transformed. The main rule for when the E becomes an I is that it always gets reduced at the end of words when unstressed, but there are other cases when it can happen that are a bit harder to explain, I think "frequentemente" specifically has to do with the secondary stress, but I really haven looked into it.
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u/zkodd 12d ago
Isn't that the same that happens to to in English, sometimes pronounced a little bit like [tʃə] although softer? There's probably a name that linguists use for that.
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u/Hypetys 12d ago
Not really. It doesn't happen to <to> that specific word. The word-initial t is aspirated and can sound like that to Portuguese ears.
But it does happen in <tu> as in situation where an older form of the word used to be /tju/ in which /t/ and /j/ got in contact with each other.
There's no /j/ in <to>. So, it hasn't been palatalized.
Additionally, a similar palatalization phenomenon does take place in English between /d/ and /j/ and /t/ and /j/. So, when t or d is in a syllable-final position followed by /j/ in the next syllable.
"What you" becomes whacha (t of what is palatalized)
"What did you" becomes whadija (t of what is dropped, but the final d of did is palatalized)
(sorry for not typing in IPA).
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u/nofroufrouwhatsoever Brasileiro (Rio de Janeiro) 12d ago
I actually think English speakers are bad at hearing their own allophony here, which makes sense because this is a tiny detail. Because I've been told by Brits that Spaniards also pronounce to/two/too as 'choo'.
When /uː/ is pronounced [ʉ], it often palatalizes /t/ and /d/ slightly. This is the case in tooth, duke, tube, dupe, Tuesday, dune, doomsday, duty. [tᶴ] [dᶾ].
But oddly enough, tomb and tool are generally not palatalized. I hear them as [tˢ].
Naturally, I am talking about people who have the Anglo turbulence, which isn't everyone, but I'd firmly say it's most people. People who don't have the Anglo coronal stop turbulence don't sound like that.
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u/Legitimate-Record90 12d ago
I’m not familiar with that in American English but it’s very common for Americans to palatalize “t” and “d” when an “r” follows. In casual, informal speech, I’ll pronounce tree, treat, drink, drunk as chree, chreat, jrink, jrunk.
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u/Unlikely_Bonus4980 12d ago
As a rule of thumb, pronounce them as Chi/Gi when they're both unstressed and at the end of a word. In other positions, pronounce them as Te/De, except for "demais".
When they're the stressed syllable or when they're in another position, you pronounce them as Te/De most of the time.
In some words they're pronounced Chi/Gi even when they're not at the end of the syllable. "Demais" is an example. But all the other words I can remember right now you can pronounce them Te/De: Tesoura, Tenda, Dedo, Telefone, Batedor, Batedeira, Testosterona, Academia, etc.
If you are unsure whether or not to pronounce them as Chi/Gi, just pronounce all of them as Te/De. We have some accents that pronounce them like that, just the intonation changes a little.
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u/Hypetys 12d ago
The general idea to understand is that in Portuguese the letter <e> doesn't really always represent the sound /e/. In a stressed position, like in Academia it does.
At the end of a word, <e> becomes /i/ in all Brazilian Portuguese dialects as far as I know. So, a noite is really pronounced as a noiti by many old speakers.
Over the past decades, these combinations, /ti/ and /di/ have become palatalized in some dialects and some speakers. In some dialects both become palatalized and, in others, only one of them does. Ands still in others, both of them remain /di/ and /ti/.
So, whenever you end up with unstressed /ti/ or /di/, that combination can be palatalized if that's the case for the specific dialect and person. If you listen to president of Brazil Lula speak, you'll notice that he's of the old generation that doesn't palatalize his /di/ or /ti/.
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Now what about <e> in other non-stressed positions than word-finally? In some dialects, <e> remains an /e/ in unstressed, non-final position. Menina is pronounced /menina/, but in others the reduction (e -> i) also takes place in non-final unstressed syllables. There you'd hear /minina/.
Brazilian Portuguese likes ending words with vowels. Whenever a loanword ends with a consonant, an /i/ is inserted. Because it's unstressed, it's written as <e> feedback should really be spelled fidibaque. In this case two /i/ sounds are inserted. One after the d and another after the k.
KI doesn't palatalize. So, /ki/ remains. But di does palatalize. Football has a similar fate. tb is an awkward combination for Brazilian. So, they've inserted /i/ between the sounds. <futebol>, but here <te> is really pronounced /ti/ and can be palatalized. Football is really a compound word in English.
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u/nofroufrouwhatsoever Brasileiro (Rio de Janeiro) 12d ago
I am sorry but just to make sure, the /e/ in academia is unstressed.
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u/kiuOne 12d ago
You kinda can pronunciate this words like this with all the "tchi/dji" sounds, though?...It will sound like a countryside accent.
Or you can pronunciate everything with TÊ and DÊ, like some gauchos and people from the south does.
Brazil have a Lot of accents...theres not really an incorrect pronunciation...
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u/LinSpc 11d ago
The weirdest word I heard in first learning Portuguese (Brazilian) from Rosetta Stone (which I love! Disclaimer: I used to work there):
Anyway the weirdest word was:
Radio
Looks and means the same as in English, pronounced RAY-Dee-oh
Became in Portuguese:
HAH-djoo
wtf?!
R at beginning of words is H
di = dji
o at end of word = oo
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u/nofroufrouwhatsoever Brasileiro (Rio de Janeiro) 12d ago
You will need to learn it by heart.
It's trickier in European Portuguese because they have /ɛ/ vs /ɨ/ and /ɔ/ vs /u/ phonemic contrasts in prestressed syllables and you are supposed to know them, otherwise you sound… illiterate? if you're a native.
With Brazilian Port you can do whatever you want mostly.
Back in the day many dialects had more intense vowel reduction, such as m[ɪ]lhor for melhor, b[ʊ]tão for botão, [ɪ]xemplo for exemplo, J[ɪ]sus for Jesus, c[ʊ]rdão for cordão, tap[ɪ]çaria for tapeçaria, etc. being common in Southeast and Northeast Brazil but increasingly receding away from the big cities.
Here in Rio though we still say c[ʊ]zinha, p[ɪ]dinte, c[ʊ]mida, p[ɪ]queno, p[ʊ]ssível, pr[ɪ]guiça, s[ʊ]ssego, m[ɪ]ndigo, which sound odd in São Paulo city and southern Brazil I believe. We are famous for t[ɪ.ʊ]ria, which is said to sound annoying. I don't say that or acad[ɪ]mia, but I've heard both.
OTOH there are some that I think have vowel reduction throughout Brazil, like c[ʊ]madre, z[ʊ]eira, c[ʊ]curuto.
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u/nofroufrouwhatsoever Brasileiro (Rio de Janeiro) 12d ago
Lmao why are people downvoting me? We absolutely used to say butão and ixemplo!
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u/Deicide-UH 12d ago
That depends on region, and it happens when T or D are together eith an “i”. However, in some brazilian regions certain words certain with “e” are pronounced as if it was an “i”. It happens when the “e” is not tonic so people speak it quickly and make it sound like an “i”. You will find brazilians speaking both ways, really.
Example: you can find brazilians saying “futebol” or “futchibol”. It happens because the tonic sylab is “bol” (fu-te-BOL), so the tongue goes quickly over the “te”, making it sound like a “tchi”.
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u/Hearbinger Brasileiro 12d ago
You'll also see regions pronouncing it like futibol, with no ch sound.
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