Brazilian Portuguese pronunciation: Open & closed vowels 

PDF: decodingwords.ck.page/openclosedvowels Were you able to distinguish between open and closed O's and E's?

This has to be my first serious obstacle learning Portuguese. Thanks for your tutorial!

The open o sound is my very first language-learning memory, and one of the earliest things I can remember. I was three, and mom was teaching me some Polish words, and that only uses the open o. That was her first language but we didn’t speak it at home, but I heard my grandfather and aunt use it a lot . I think hearing non-English sounds as a kid helped me a lot with language learning as an adult.

As a native French speaker I’m already familiar with those sounds

thank you! i just started learning portuguese and this helps A LOT!

Nice job! You have a great understanding of the many variations of Brazilian Portuguese. It comes with years of speaking to Brazilians from all different regions and I'm sure you also have studied using resources that others have produced before us (Pois Não/Com Licença are great books). I've done the same type of analytical work as you. I've heard and observed the many different accents of Brazil and have categoried and trained the different sounds. I've also chosen which sounds I would incorporate into my speech, for example, I say "dji/tchi," I use erre aspirado before a consonant or at the end of the word (although it can be almost omitted or sound a like Spanish R) instead of erre retroflexo. I've trained the nasal sounds extensively and have also verified which vowels are open/closed or have variations. For example, many people use different vowels for problema, fonema, tema (some use more open or closed than others). We also have faz/fais, nós/nóis, mas/mais, bonito/bunitu, come/comi, etc... The word "distinguir" has so many possibilities and combinations (guir/güir/di/diji/ti/tchi + different types of r's at the end of the word). There's also the s that become a /z/ depending on the sound it precedes (as facas = /s/, as línguas /z/, os brasileiros /z/ = basically the same reason why mesmo has /z/ sound) = s before voiced phoneme = z. Eu fiz = /s/ & eu fiz isso = fiz_isso (z). The r between two vowels belonging to different words has many possibilities: Vou falar a língua (pause and pronounce aspirado, retroflexo, tapped or connect and omit or tap). I like to write my own phonetic notes such as "queda de cabelo" = quéda de cabêlu and things of that nature. It's amazing how they become totally natural and even show up (inadvertently) when speaking other languages. I have tones of glossaries, notes and tables that I have compiled throughout the years. I like to form sentences to drill the pronunciations and connected speech. Perhaps we could compare notes one day. I look forward to your next videos.

Muito obrigado ❤

Some of this sounds more like an intonation difference than actual difference in pronunciation...at least for some parts to me, not all words. Pitch accent difference idk how to explain it...

that’s pretty helpful to understand pronunciations!I I just started to learn Portuguese but i’m confused sometimes when i listen to some words. sometimes “O” sounds like kinda “U” for me, also “E” for “todo bEn” sounds like “ei”. Maybe there’s some rules of pronunciation that i don’t know yet…?

Just watched three videos from you. Thanks for your time! Question, why don't they ALWAYS use accents to distinguish between the written words?

Ótimo vídeo, muito obrigada. Meu sotaque em português não soa natural. Acho que minha maior dificuldade com a pronúncia são as vogais E e O. Nunca sei quando se trata de um O ou E fechado ou aberto.

Hardest damn thing I’ve done is trying to learn Portuguese. Crazy small subtleties. Seemingly impossible.

What about closed and open A?