Nasal Vowels (ã, õ, ẽ, ĩ, ũ)

Nasal vowels are the sound that makes Portuguese Portuguese. They are also the single feature English speakers most reliably get wrong, because the error is hidden in plain sight: the spelling shows an m or an n, and English speakers pronounce it — but in BR that consonant is usually not a consonant at all. It is a signal that the vowel before it is nasal. This page teaches you the five nasal vowels, how they are written, and how to stop pronouncing the n.

What a nasal vowel is

When you say an ordinary ("oral") vowel, all the air comes out of your mouth. When you say a nasal vowel, you lower the soft part of the roof of your mouth (the velum) so that air flows through your nose at the same time, giving the vowel a resonant, humming quality. English does this involuntarily before nasal consonants — say "can" slowly and you'll feel your nose buzzing during the vowel — but English then also fully pronounces the [n]. Portuguese keeps the nasal buzz on the vowel and usually drops the consonant.

So the leap for an English speaker is small in one sense (you already nasalize vowels) and large in another (you have to stop finishing with the consonant).

The five nasal vowels

BR has five nasal vowel qualities, mirroring five of the oral ones:

Two things to notice. First, nasal a is written [ɐ̃], a slightly higher and more central sound than oral [a] — when a nasalizes, it also raises a little, so maçã ends in [ɐ̃], not [ã]. Second, there are two ways to write a nasal vowel:

• With the tilde (til): ã and õ. The tilde is the nasal mark.
• With a following m or n in the same syllable: an/am, en/em, in/im, on/om, un/um. (The convention: m before p or b and at the end of a word; n elsewhere. campo, tempo, bom use m; canto, onde, cinco use n.)

The key insight: the m/n is not a consonant

Here is the rule that fixes most English-speaker mistakes in one stroke. When m or n closes a syllable (i.e., it is followed by another consonant, or it ends the word), it is not pronounced as a separate sound. Its only job is to nasalize the vowel.

So bom is one syllable, [bõ], that ends with your lips relaxed and your nose buzzing — not [bom] with your lips closing for an m. Um is [ũ], a humming "oong"-without-the-g, not [um]. This is the difference between sounding Brazilian and sounding like a tourist.

When m and n ARE real consonants

To be fair and precise: m and n are pronounced normally when they begin a syllable, i.e. when a vowel follows them. In that case there is no nasal vowel — the consonant is just an ordinary [m] or [n].

Compare cama [ˈkɐmɐ] (real m) with campo [ˈkɐ̃pu] (no m, just nasal vowel). The difference is whether a vowel follows the m/n. In ca-ma a vowel follows, so the m sounds; in cam-po a consonant follows, so the m is silent and the a is nasal. (Note: even in cama and ano the preceding vowel often picks up a light nasal coloring before the nasal consonant, just as in English "money" — but that is automatic and you needn't worry about it.)

The tilde forms: ã and õ

The tilde-marked vowels work the same way — they are simply nasal vowels written without an m or n. You will meet them constantly:

The standalone õ almost always appears inside the nasal diphthong õe (as in põe, lições) rather than alone; the plain nasal-o sound you'll usually meet as on/om (bom, onde). The full set of nasal diphthongs — ão, ãe, õe — gets its own page, Nasal Diphthongs, because they are central to BR.

Contrast with English: why the n keeps sneaking back

In English, a vowel + n always ends with a fully pronounced is [wɪn], tongue firmly against the ridge behind your teeth at the end. Your mouth has spent a lifetime finishing these words with a consonant. In Portuguese sim [sĩ], the tongue never touches that ridge — there is no [n], only the nasal vowel. English speakers' tongues reflexively complete the motion, adding an n that shouldn't be there. This single reflex is the number-one accent giveaway for English-speaking learners of BR.

The fix is physical, not intellectual: learn to stop your tongue and lips from closing at the end of these words. Say sim and freeze with your mouth slightly open and your nose buzzing. Say bom and do not let your lips meet.

A regional note

Nasalization is consistent across Brazil — every accent, from carioca (Rio) to paulista (São Paulo) to nordestino (Northeast), nasalizes these vowels. What varies is fine detail: some Northeastern speakers nasalize a bit more heavily, and the exact quality of nasal a [ɐ̃] can shift slightly. None of this changes the core rule: the m/n is not a separate consonant. You can rely on that everywhere in Brazil.

Common Mistakes

Key Takeaways

• BR has five nasal vowels: [ɐ̃], [ẽ], [ĩ], [õ], [ũ].
• They are written with a tilde (ã, õ) or as vowel + m/n in the same syllable.
• When m/n closes a syllable (followed by a consonant or ending the word), it is not pronounced — it only nasalizes the vowel: bom = [bõ], um = [ũ].
• When m/n begins a syllable (a vowel follows), it is a real consonant: cama = [ˈkɐmɐ].
• The English reflex of pronouncing the final n is the biggest accent giveaway — learn to end these words with your mouth open and your nose buzzing.