Spanish and Portuguese Diphthongs

Foreign Service Institute: From Spanish to Portuguese

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Spanish Diphthongs with Counterparts in Portuguese

Most of the diphthongs that occur in Spanish also occur in Portuguese, but with different degrees of frequency. We will not bother to treat all of them here, but will make just a few comments about several of them.

Spanish ie and ue can be found in Portuguese, but not nearly so often as in Spanish. We have already seen that the Portuguese open e and open o sounds frequently appear when you are accustomed to hearing Spanish ie and ue.

On the other hand, the diphthongs ei and eu, which are somewhat limited in their occurrence in Spanish, are very common in Portuguese.

You should be particularly mindful of the ei, since it often appears in those positions where Spanish has a simple e sound. When this is the case, you will have to be doubly careful to add the '-i-glide' to the e sound and make it a genuine diphthong. It will sound much like the -ay of English bay. Compare these examples:

 

Spanish	Portuguese	English
quemar	queimar
dejar	deixar
madera	madeira
manera	maneira
primero	primeiro
verdadero	verdadeiro
caballero	cavalheiro
dinero	dinheiro
soltero	solteiro

Notice that many of these Spanish words end in -ero and -era.

 

The ei diphthong is also to be found in these verb endings:

mandei, mandarei (cf. Spanish mandé, mandaré)
falei, falarei (cf. Spanish hablé, hablaré)
cantei, cantarei (cf. Spanish canté, cantaré)

and others of the sort.

The most common occurrences of the eu diphthong are:

meu, seu (cf. Spanish mi, su)
eu (cf. Spanish yo)
deus, adeus (cf. Spanish dios, adiós)

the 3rd person, singular, past tense ending of regular -er verbs:
venceu (cf. Spanish venció)
valeu (cf. Spanish valió)
bebeu (cf. Spanish bebió)
comeu (cf. Spanish comió)
vendeu (cf. Spanish vendió)

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Portuguese Diphthongs Not Occurring in Spanish

1. Oral Diphthongs

Among the new diphthongs are three involving the open vowel sounds e and o.

 

Ei, as in papéis, hotéis
Eu, as in céu, chapéu
Oi, as in dói, herói

Also new is ou, as in vou, sou. Note particularly its presence in trabalhou, falou, mandou and similar past tense items where Spanish has the single vowel -ó (cf. Spanish trabajó, habló, mandó).

2. Nasal Diphthongs ẽ ĩ õ ũ and ə̃

The nasal vowels ə̃, ẽ, and õ combine with the vowel sounds i and u to form four nasal diphthongs:

ə̃i, as in mãe, cães, pães
ẽi, (usually spelled em), as in vem, tem, bem, dizem
õi, as in põe, canções, botões, funções
ə̃u, as in não, pão, falam, saíram

A fifth diphthong, ũi, appears only in the word muito.

The ə̃u diphthong is very useful. It corresponds to the Spanish verb endings -án, -an, and -on. It also corresponds to Spanish noun endings -ón and -ión. Observe the samples below.

a. Third person plural verb forms:

Spanish	Portuguese	English
pasan	passam
pasaban	passavam
pasarán	passarão
pasarían	passariam
pasaron	passaram
van	vão
dan	dão
digan	digam
reciban	recebam
están	estão
son	são

 

b. Nouns:

Spanish	Portuguese	English
limón	limão
melón	melão
montón	montão
salón	salão
corazón	coração
condición	condição
destinación	destinação
sección	seção
lección	lição

(Many other nouns ending in -ón and -ión in Spanish will end in the diphthong -ə̃u in Portuguese.)

 

c. Others:

Spanish	Portuguese	English
tan	tão
san	são

 

The õi diphthong is heard in the common plural ending -ões, which corresponds to Spanish -ones and -iones. Compare these Spanish and Portuguese plurals of nouns listed in (b) above.

Spanish	Portuguese	English
limones	limões
melones	melões
montones	montões
salones	salões
corazones	corações
condiciones	condições
destinaciones	destinações
secciones	seções
lecciones	lições

 

The ẽi diphthong often corresponds to the Spanish verb-ending -en. Compare:

Spanish	Portuguese	English
viven	vivem
venden	vendem
manden	mandem
viviesen	vivessem

 

Diphthongs Restricted to Some Dialects

It is striking to the ears of Spanish speakers that in the speech of many Brazilians a stressed vowel before a final s sound is glided toward the i sound. The result is a diphthong.

Standard Spelling	Possible Pronunciation
gás	[gais]
mas	[mais]
arroz	[arrois]
nós	[nois]
feroz	[ferois]
eficaz	[eficais]
vez	[veis]
luz	[luis]
pus	[puis]
avestruz	[avestruis]
voz	[vois]
maçãs	[maçə̃is]
irmãs	[irmə̃is]
manhãs	[manhə̃is]

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