What's the Portuguese alphabet like?

• Portuguese has a Latin-based alphabet consisting of 26 letters, the same as English
• You may well have to spell out your name and perhaps your address in Portuguese. Here is the alphabet and how to pronounce it

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What's significant about the Portuguese alphabet?

• Vowels and accents

  Portuguese has 14 vowel sounds. Accents are used to show their pronunciation: á, â, ã à, ç, é, ê, í, ó, ô, õ, and ú

  These accents also indicate the stressed syllable, eg:
  café, coffee
  você, you (formal)
  mãe, mother

  Nasal vowels are very common and they are represented by the tilde over the vowels a and o:
  canção, song canções, songs

  The cedila (ç) before -a, - o, and - u sounds the same as ‘s’

• Consonants:

  The letter h is silent in Portuguese

  The letters r, s, z and the combinations nh, lh, ch, rr may prove more challenging, for example:
  rádio, rádios, radio(s)
  sozinho, sozinha, alone
  chamar, to call
  trabalho, work
  correio, mail

  From 1943 k, y and w were considered foreign letters and not included in the official alphabet. They were reintroduced as part of the spelling reform of 2009, but are still mainly found in foreign names and words imported from other languages

  These three letters also have different names in Portugal and Brazil. Respectively:
  k: kapa, ka
  y: i grego, ípsilon
  w: duplo ve, dábliu

• Email and website conventions

  @ arroba
  . ponto, dot
  / barra, forward slash
  - hífen, hyphen