The Portuguese alphabet is nearly identical to the English one, which gives you a great head start. It uses the same 26 letters, from A to Z. While K, W, and Y were officially added recently to accommodate foreign words, you won't see them very often in native Portuguese vocabulary.

Let's start by learning the name of each letter.

Knowing the letter names is useful, but the sounds they make inside words are what really matter. Many consonants sound just like they do in English, but a few have unique pronunciations. The vowels are where things get most interesting.

Portuguese has five vowels, just like English: A, E, I, O, U. Their basic sounds are generally short and open.

• A sounds like the 'a' in "father."
• E sounds like the 'e' in "met."
• I sounds like the 'ee' in "see."
• O sounds like the 'o' in "go," but shorter.
• U sounds like the 'oo' in "moon."

However, the most distinctive feature of Portuguese pronunciation is its use of nasal vowels. This happens when a vowel is followed by an M or N, or when it has a tilde (~) over it. The sound is pushed through the nose, creating a sound that doesn't really exist in English.

The most common nasal sound is ão. You'll see it everywhere. It's found in words like não (no), pão (bread), and coração (heart).

Many consonants are straightforward. B, D, F, K, L, M, N, P, T, and V sound almost exactly as they do in English. But a few letters and combinations change their tune depending on their position in a word or the letters around them.

Here are the most important ones to know:

Just like in English, some letters in Portuguese team up to create new sounds. These are called digraphs. Getting these down will make your reading and pronunciation much smoother.

Here are the essential combinations to learn:

That's a quick tour of the Portuguese alphabet and its sounds. It might seem like a lot of rules, but with a little practice, they'll become second nature.