In Portuguese an accent is not decoration — it carries information. It can mark which syllable is stressed, change a vowel from open to closed (avó vs avô), or distinguish two completely different words spelled with the same letters. So a missing or misplaced accent is a genuine error, sometimes a meaning-changing one. English speakers, who never use accents, tend to treat them as optional flourishes; that instinct produces real mistakes.
Accent errors fall into three clean buckets, and almost every mistake you'll make is one of them:
- Omitting an accent that changes meaning (esta vs está).
- Adding an accent the 2009 spelling reform (Acordo Ortográfico) abolished (idéia → ideia).
- Crase errors — the à vs a distinction.
This page works through all three.
Bucket 1: omitting a meaning-changing accent
These are the dangerous ones, because the word without its accent is often also a real word — so a spell checker won't catch it, and you'll be misunderstood. The accent here is doing semantic work.
esta / está
Esta (no accent) is the demonstrative "this" (feminine). Está (accent on the final a) is the verb "is/are" (third person of estar). They are pronounced differently — stress on the first vs the last syllable — and mean entirely different things.
❌ Onde esta minha mãe?
Incorrect — you mean the verb 'está' (is).
✅ Onde está minha mãe?
Where is my mother?
✅ Esta casa é maior do que a outra.
This house is bigger than the other one.
avó / avô / avo
A famous minimal trio. Avó (open o, acute accent) means "grandmother"; avô (closed o, circumflex) means "grandfather"; avo (no accent) is a fraction word ("a part of," as in um doze avos). Drop or swap the accent and you change the family member.
❌ Vou visitar minha avo no domingo.
Incorrect — without the accent it's a fraction word; you mean 'avó' (grandmother).
✅ Vou visitar minha avó no domingo.
I'm going to visit my grandmother on Sunday.
✅ Meu avô tem oitenta anos e minha avó, setenta e cinco.
My grandfather is eighty and my grandmother seventy-five.
sabia / sábia / sabiá
Three words separated only by the accent, and the accent moves the stress to a different syllable each time. Sabia (stress on the i) = "knew" (imperfect of saber); sábia (stress on the first a) = "wise" (feminine adjective); sabiá (stress on the final a) = a songbird (the Brazilian thrush, a national symbol).
✅ Eu não sabia que ela era tão sábia.
I didn't know she was so wise.
✅ Ouvimos um sabiá cantar de manhã cedo.
We heard a thrush singing early in the morning.
secretaria / secretária
Secretaria (stress on ri) = "secretariat / office, department." Secretária (stress on tá) = "(female) secretary" — or, in Brazil, also a "answering machine / dresser," depending on context. Mixing them up sends someone to the wrong place.
❌ Falei com a secretaria sobre o problema.
Likely incorrect if you mean the person — that's 'secretária'.
✅ Falei com a secretária sobre o problema.
I spoke with the secretary about the problem.
Bucket 2: outdated accents the 2009 reform removed
The Acordo Ortográfico (in force in Brazil since 2009, fully mandatory from 2016) abolished several accents. If you learned from old material — or from intuition based on pronunciation — you may still be writing them. These are now flat errors.
No more trema (¨)
The diaeresis over u in qü/gü is gone. Lingüiça → linguiça, freqüente → frequente, tranqüilo → tranquilo. (The u is still pronounced; it just isn't marked.)
❌ Comi uma lingüiça deliciosa no almoço.
Incorrect — the trema was abolished: 'linguiça'.
✅ Comi uma linguiça deliciosa no almoço.
I ate a delicious sausage at lunch.
No acute on -éi-/-ói- in paroxytones
Words like idéia, jibóia, heróico lost their accent on the diphthong: ideia, jiboia, heroico.
❌ Tive uma ótima idéia ontem à noite.
Incorrect — post-reform spelling is 'ideia'.
✅ Tive uma ótima ideia ontem à noite.
I had a great idea last night.
No circumflex on double-o and on -eem
Vôo → voo, enjôo → enjoo; and verb forms like crêem → creem, lêem → leem, vêem → veem.
❌ O vôo está atrasado três horas.
Incorrect — the circumflex on double-o was removed: 'voo'.
✅ O voo está atrasado três horas.
The flight is delayed three hours.
"para," not "pára"
The verb para (from parar, "to stop") used to take an accent to distinguish it from the preposition para ("for/to"). The reform removed it. Both are now written para — context disambiguates.
❌ O ônibus pára em todos os pontos.
Incorrect — the accent on the verb was abolished: 'para'.
✅ O ônibus para em todos os pontos.
The bus stops at every stop.
Bucket 3: crase (à vs a)
The crase — the grave accent on à — marks the fusion of the preposition a with the feminine article a (a + a = à). It is not a stress accent and not interchangeable with plain a. The error works both ways: writing à where only the preposition exists, or writing a where a fusion is needed.
The cleanest test: if the destination/object is feminine and takes an article, you need à. If it's a place that takes no article (like casa meaning home), you use plain a.
✅ Vou a casa cedo hoje.
I'm going home early today. (no article before 'casa' = home → plain 'a')
✅ Vou à praia no fim de semana.
I'm going to the beach on the weekend. (a + a praia → à)
❌ Entreguei o relatório a diretora.
Incorrect — feminine + article requires crase: 'à diretora'.
✅ Entreguei o relatório à diretora.
I handed the report to the director.
A practical swap test: replace the feminine destination with a masculine equivalent. If a becomes ao, then the feminine needs à. Vou *ao mercado → Vou à feira*. *Falei ao diretor* → *Falei à diretora. If the masculine version is just *a (rare) or para o, then no crase.
✅ Das duas às quatro da tarde estarei ocupado.
From two to four in the afternoon I'll be busy. (fixed time expression takes crase)
Time expressions (às três horas, à meia-noite) and many fixed adverbial phrases (à vontade, às vezes, à toa) take crase as set forms — worth memorizing.
Bucket bonus: the right accent on the wrong vowel quality (á vs â)
A subtler error: choosing the acute (á, open) where the closed circumflex (â) belongs, or vice versa. The accent type encodes vowel quality. And spelling the language's own name wrong is a surprisingly common slip — it's português, with the circumflex on the e and no accent on the u.
❌ Estou aprendendo portugûes há seis meses.
Incorrect — the accent goes on the 'e': 'português'.
✅ Estou aprendendo português há seis meses.
I've been learning Portuguese for six months.
Summary and recap
Accents encode stress and vowel quality, so they are part of the spelling, not optional. Watch the three buckets:
- Don't omit meaning-changing accents. está (is) vs esta (this); avó (grandmother) / avô (grandfather) / avo (fraction); sabia / sábia / sabiá; secretária (person) vs secretaria (office).
- Don't write pre-2009 accents. No trema (linguiça, not lingüiça); no acute on -éi-/-ói- paroxytones (ideia, heroico); no circumflex on double-o or -eem (voo, leem); the verb is para, not pára.
- Get crase right. à = a
- feminine article a. Use the masculine swap test: if it becomes ao, you need à. Vou à praia, but vou a casa (home, no article).
- And spell the language português, with the circumflex on the e.
Common Mistakes
❌ Ela esta cansada hoje.
Incorrect — the verb needs its accent: 'está'.
✅ Ela está cansada hoje.
She's tired today.
❌ Meu vôo sai às seis, mas tive uma idéia melhor.
Incorrect — post-reform: 'voo' and 'ideia'.
✅ Meu voo sai às seis, mas tive uma ideia melhor.
My flight leaves at six, but I had a better idea.
❌ Vou a feira comprar frutas.
Incorrect — feminine + article needs crase: 'à feira'.
✅ Vou à feira comprar frutas.
I'm going to the market to buy fruit.
❌ Adoro a comida da minha avo.
Incorrect — without the accent it isn't 'grandmother'; use 'avó'.
✅ Adoro a comida da minha avó.
I love my grandmother's cooking.
❌ O carro pára no sinal vermelho.
Incorrect — the verb 'parar' lost its accent: 'para'.
✅ O carro para no sinal vermelho.
The car stops at the red light.
Now practice Portuguese
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Start learning Portuguese→Related Topics
- Accent Marks: Acute, Circumflex, Grave, Tilde, CedillaA1 — Each Brazilian Portuguese diacritic encodes specific information: acute = stress + open vowel, circumflex = stress + closed vowel, tilde = nasal, cedilla = [s], grave = crase.
- Stress Patterns in BRA2 — Portuguese stress is rule-governed: default penultimate for vowel/-s endings, default final for consonant endings, with written accents flagging only the exceptions.
- Contractions with 'A' (The Crase)A2 — The 'a' contractions (ao, aos) and the crase (à) in Brazilian Portuguese — what the accent really means, the reliable substitution test, when crase is required, and the most common crase errors.
- Common Spelling ErrorsA2 — The Brazilian Portuguese spelling traps that catch learners — the many spellings of /s/, the four 'porquê's, mas vs mais, mau vs mal, and s vs z.
- Common Mistakes: OverviewA2 — A map of the errors Brazilian Portuguese learners actually make, sorted by first language — because English speakers and Spanish speakers trip over completely different things.