This page covers the everyday math vocabulary you need to function in Brazil: reading percentages, saying basic arithmetic out loud, expressing multiples like double and half, and one quirk that trips up every learner — the use of meia for the digit 6 in phone numbers and codes. None of this is conceptually hard, but the words are unfamiliar, and a few of them (especially meia) break the pattern English speakers expect. This page assumes you can already say the cardinal numbers.
Percentages: por cento
A percentage in Portuguese is the cardinal number followed by the two-word phrase por cento (literally "per hundred"). It is always written as two words, and it never changes form — there is no plural, no agreement.
| Written | Read aloud | English |
|---|---|---|
| 10% | dez por cento | ten percent |
| 25% | vinte e cinco por cento | twenty-five percent |
| 50% | cinquenta por cento | fifty percent |
| 100% | cem por cento | one hundred percent |
| 0,5% | meio por cento | half a percent |
A loja está com cinquenta por cento de desconto em tudo.
The store has fifty percent off on everything.
Tenho certeza absoluta — cem por cento.
I'm absolutely sure — one hundred percent.
Note the seam at 100: it is cem por cento, using cem (the form for an exact hundred), not cento. But once you go above 100, the cento e pattern kicks in, exactly as with plain cardinals:
| Written | Read aloud |
|---|---|
| 110% | cento e dez por cento |
| 150% | cento e cinquenta por cento |
| 200% | duzentos por cento |
As vendas cresceram cento e vinte por cento neste ano.
Sales grew one hundred and twenty percent this year.
The four operations
Reading arithmetic aloud uses a small set of fixed words. The verb is é igual a ("equals," literally "is equal to"), and in casual speech people often just say é ("is").
| Symbol | Operation | Word | English |
|---|---|---|---|
| + | addition | mais | plus |
| − | subtraction | menos | minus |
| × | multiplication | vezes | times |
| ÷ | division | dividido por | divided by |
| = | result | é igual a / é | equals / is |
Dois mais dois é igual a quatro.
Two plus two equals four.
Dez menos três são sete.
Ten minus three is seven.
Quanto é seis vezes oito?
How much is six times eight?
Vinte dividido por quatro dá cinco.
Twenty divided by four gives five.
Two points worth noticing for English speakers. First, vezes is the same word as "times" in the sense of frequency (três vezes por dia, three times a day) — Portuguese reuses it for multiplication, just as English reuses "times." Second, the result verb wobbles between singular and plural: é igual a, é, or são are all heard, and Brazilians don't agonize over agreement here — dez menos três são sete and dez menos três é sete both pass.
Multiples and fractions of a quantity: dobro, triplo, metade
Where English stacks "double," "triple," and "half" as loose modifiers, Portuguese has tidy nouns, each taking the definite article and usually de:
- o dobro — double, twice the amount
- o triplo — triple, three times the amount
- o quádruplo — quadruple (less common but exists)
- a metade — half (the noun; see also Fractions and Decimals)
Esse apartamento custa o dobro do que eu pago de aluguel.
This apartment costs double what I pay in rent.
Ele ganha o triplo do salário mínimo.
He earns triple the minimum wage.
Só comi a metade do prato, não estava com fome.
I only ate half the plate, I wasn't hungry.
Because these are nouns, they behave differently from English adjectives. You say o dobro do preço ("the double of the price"), not "double price." The structure is [article] + dobro/triplo/metade + de + [thing], with de contracting into the following article: do, da, dos, das.
Averages: em média
To say something happens "on average," Brazilian Portuguese uses the fixed phrase em média. The noun a média by itself means "the average" (and, by the way, also "a school passing grade" and "a small white coffee" in a café — context decides).
Eu durmo, em média, sete horas por noite.
I sleep, on average, seven hours a night.
A média da turma na prova foi seis e meio.
The class average on the test was six and a half.
Reading prices, degrees, and phone numbers
Prices (R$). The symbol R$ is read reais (the plural of real, the currency), and it comes after the number when spoken. The comma is the decimal point (see Fractions and Decimals), and the centavos are introduced with e:
O ingresso custa quarenta e nove reais e noventa centavos.
The ticket costs forty-nine reais and ninety centavos.
For everyday prices people compress this: R$ 49,90 is often just quarenta e nove e noventa.
Degrees. Temperature and angles use graus (degrees): trinta graus (30°), trinta e oito graus de febre (a 38° fever). The little circle is o grau.
Hoje a máxima vai chegar a trinta e cinco graus.
Today the high is going to reach thirty-five degrees.
Phone numbers — and the famous meia. Here is the one genuine trap. Brazilians read phone numbers digit by digit, but they almost always replace the digit 6 with meia. This comes from meia dúzia ("half a dozen" = 6); over time meia dúzia got clipped down to just meia when reading out numbers. The reason it exists at all is to avoid confusion: seis (6) and três (3) can sound alike over a bad phone line, so meia keeps them distinct.
So the number 3662 is read três, meia, meia, dois — not três, seis, seis, dois.
| Digits | Read aloud |
|---|---|
| 3662 | três, meia, meia, dois |
| 9 8765-4321 | nove, oito, sete, meia, cinco, quatro, três, dois, um |
| 6060 | meia, zero, meia, zero |
Meu número é nove, nove, oito, sete, meia, cinco, quatro, três, dois.
My number is nine, nine, eight, seven, six, five, four, three, two.
O ramal é dois, meia, três, quatro.
The extension is two, six, three, four.
Common Mistakes
❌ Tenho vinte porcento de bateria.
Incorrect — the reading of a figure is two words: 'por cento'.
✅ Tenho vinte por cento de bateria.
I have twenty percent battery.
The one-word porcentagem is the noun for the rate; the spoken reading of a value is the two-word por cento.
❌ Esse carro custa o dobro preço.
Incorrect — 'dobro' is a noun and needs 'de' (do): 'o dobro do preço'.
✅ Esse carro custa o dobro do preço.
This car costs double the price.
❌ Cem e dez por cento dos alunos passaram.
Incorrect — above 100 the link word is part of 'cento e', not 'cem e'.
✅ Cento e dez por cento dos alunos passaram.
One hundred and ten percent of the students passed.
Use cem por cento for exactly 100%, but switch to cento e... the moment you go above it.
❌ Meu ramal é três, seis, seis, dois.
Not wrong, but no Brazilian dictates it this way — 6 in a digit string is 'meia'.
✅ Meu ramal é três, meia, meia, dois.
My extension is three, six, six, two.
❌ Comprei meia laranjas.
Incorrect — 'meia' for 6 is only for spoken digit strings, not quantities; and 'meia' as 'half' must agree with its noun.
✅ Comprei seis laranjas.
I bought six oranges.
Key Takeaways
- Percentages: cardinal + por cento (two words, invariable). Cem por cento for 100%, cento e... above it. The noun for the rate is a porcentagem.
- Arithmetic: mais (+), menos (−), vezes (×), dividido por (÷), and é igual a / é / dá for the result.
- Multiples are nouns with de: o dobro do preço, o triplo do salário, a metade do bolo.
- Em média = "on average."
- Phone numbers and dictated digit strings replace the digit 6 with meia (from meia dúzia) — but never for a counted quantity of six.
Now practice Portuguese
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Start learning Portuguese→Related Topics
- Fractions and DecimalsB1 — How to say fractions and decimals in Brazilian Portuguese: ordinal denominators, the '-avos' suffix, meio vs metade, and reading the decimal comma as 'vírgula'.
- Cardinal Numbers 100+A1 — Counting from one hundred upward in Brazilian Portuguese: cem vs cento, the gendered hundreds, invariable mil, milhão/bilhão with 'de', and the rules for 'e'.
- Numbers: OverviewA1 — A map of Brazilian Portuguese numbers — gender agreement on um/uma, dois/duas and the hundreds, the reversed comma-decimal/period-thousands punctuation, and the 'e' that links the parts.
- Cardinal Numbers 1-100A1 — How to count from zero to one hundred in Brazilian Portuguese, including the gendered forms um/uma and dois/duas and the role of 'e'.