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Say the final letter
Many Brazilians do not pronounce (pronunciar) the final
letter (or syllable – sílaba) of some words:
One of the final letters that many Brazilians do not
want to say is -y:
… They pronounce “copy” like this (assim): “cop”
… They pronounce “easy” like this: “eez”
… They pronounce “university” like this: “universit”
This does not sound (não soa) good, and sometimes (as
vezes) it sounds like a different word – people will understand your
English better if you say these words properly (direito).
The final y must be (deve ser) pronounced, clearly
(claramente) – when it comes after a consonant (consoante) it almost
always (quase sempre)* has the sound like (como) -ee in: bee, see, tree
(the same sound as in: we, he, she, me).
(Of course, when a final y comes after a vowel (vogal),
it makes different sounds, like in: day, they, boy, buy).
The same pronunciation error (erro) occurs (acontece)
in words like taxi and coffee.
When people “forget” (esquecer) to pronounce the final letter (or
syllable) in these words,
coffee sounds like cough (the English word for tosse), and
taxi sounds like tax (the English word for imposto).
Say, clearly: “coff-ee” and “tax-ee”
(Brazilians also often (frequentemente) “forget” to pronounce the final s
on plural words.)
* An exception is when the final y comes after f in words like clarify and
signify – then it has the same sound as: I, my, fly, high.
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