Difficult Business English Words for Portuguese Speakers to Pronounce

Words with an 'i' sound in the final syllable

Portuguese speakers sometimes miss the 'i' sound in the last syllable of a word.  Here are the most important business words to look out for:

Words with 'cy' / 'ty' / 'gy' / 'dy' on the end of the word

Portuguese native speakers often miss the 'y' sound on the end of certain business English words.  On the end of the following words, there should be a strong and clear 'eeee' sound:

Here are the other main business English words with this sound:

Plural forms and verb forms: Words ending in -ces / -ses / -ges / -zes / -ches

Portuguese speakers often miss the '-iz' sound at the end of these words.  This can feel quite unnatural and quite strange for an English learner, because it can sometimes sound like there is an extra syllable on the end of the word.  However, if these words are not pronounced correctly it can affect the meaning:

Here are some other classic plural forms or verbs forms to be careful of in business:

Past Tenses - Verbs ending in -ped, -ced, -ked, -ched, -ged

For these words, portuguese speakers sometimes pronounced the 'e' in the -ed ending. For the word 'stop', they sometimes say /stopid/ instead of the correct /stopt/. 

For example, the word 'stopped' should be pronounced:

/stopt/ - here as you can see we do not pronounce the 'e' in the 'ed' ending. The 'e' is completely silent.

The incorrect version, which is sometimes used by Portuguese native speakers is /sto ped/  or  /sto pid/.  This incorrect version can be confusing, because it sounds like 'stop it' instead of 'stopped'. 

Therefore this can really change the meaning quite dramatically if pronounced incorrectly.  Below are some classic important examples of this for business:

Here are some other classic past tense forms of verbs to watch out for in business: