The Portuguese days of the week look intimidating at first, but they hide a system that is actually more logical than English, French, or Spanish. Five of the seven days are not named after gods or planets at all - they are simply counted: “second,” “third,” “fourth,” “fifth,” “sixth.” Only sábado and domingo break that pattern, and both come from religion rather than numbers. Once you understand the nasal vowels, the “-feira” ending, and the Portuguese R, all seven days become predictable. This guide breaks down domingo through sábado with IPA, plain-English phonetics, and the exact mouth mechanics for each one.
Here are all seven days with Brazilian Portuguese IPA, a plain-English phonetic guide, and their literal meaning:
Notice the shared ending: segunda, terça, quarta, quinta and sexta-feira all finish in -feira /ˈfej.ɾɐ/, from the Latin feria (“feast day” or “free day”). Only the number at the front changes. Sábado and domingo are the two true exceptions, and both are explained by religion rather than counting.
Three sounds carry almost all the difficulty. Master these and every day name falls into place:
Drill the shared “-feira” ending first - “FAY-rah” - then attach each number to the front.
Portuguese is the only major Romance language that abandoned the Roman planetary week almost entirely, and the reason is specifically religious. In the 6th century, the bishop Martin of Braga, working in what is now northern Portugal and Galicia, pushed to replace the pagan planetary day names - dies Martis (Mars’s day), dies Mercurii (Mercury’s day), and so on - with the neutral ecclesiastical numbering already used inside the Church calendar, where Sunday was “feria prima,” Monday “feria secunda,” and so forth. Most of Europe kept the old planetary names anyway, but in Portuguese-speaking Iberia the numbered system stuck permanently, which is why segunda-feira through sexta-feira are counted rather than named after gods.
The word feira itself comes from the Latin feria, meaning a feast day or a day free from work - the same root that gives English “fair,” as in a market fair. Over centuries, feria shifted from meaning “holy day” to simply meaning “day” inside this counting system, so segunda-feira is literally “second [feast] day” rather than “second day” in a purely numerical sense.
The two exceptions prove the rule. Sábado comes from the Latin sabbatum, itself borrowed from the Hebrew Shabbat - the day of rest kept by the Jewish calendar, which the early Church carried over as Saturday. Domingo comes from dies Dominicus, “the Lord’s day,” marking Sunday as the day of Christian worship. Because both days already had strong religious identities, the numbering system never touched them - which is exactly why they sound completely different from the other five.
Brazilian Portuguese keeps unstressed vowels fairly full and clear - segunda-feira is “seh-GOON-dah FAY-rah,” with every syllable easy to hear. The R at the start of terça and the middle of quarta is a guttural, throat-based sound close to an English H with friction. Final -o, as in sábado, is pronounced closer to “oo.”
European Portuguese reduces unstressed vowels much more heavily, so segunda-feira comes out closer to “s’GOON-duh FAY-ruh,” with the first vowel almost disappearing. The European R is typically a stronger uvular trill, and word-final “-o” stays closer to a short “oo” but with a more clipped, consonant-heavy overall rhythm than the Brazilian version.
Both are correct. Brazilian Portuguese is more widely taught to English speakers and easier to understand at first because of its fuller vowels, so most learners start there and adjust to European Portuguese later if needed.
Once you see the numbering system, the five weekday names stop being separate vocabulary words and become one pattern with five variables. Segunda (second) is Monday because Sunday - domingo - is treated as the unnumbered “first” day, the Lord’s day that starts the ecclesiastical week. Counting forward from there: segunda-feira (second) is Monday, terça-feira (third) is Tuesday, quarta-feira (fourth) is Wednesday, quinta-feira (fifth) is Thursday, and sexta-feira (sixth) is Friday.
In everyday spoken Brazilian Portuguese, the “-feira” half is often dropped in casual speech - people simply say “segunda” or “terça” the way an English speaker might casually say “Mon” for “Monday.” Formal writing, the news, and school always keep the full “-feira” form, so it is worth learning both.
Brazilians themselves often shorten these names in casual chat, texting “seg,” “ter,” “qua,” “qui,” and “sex” for the weekdays, but always expand back to the full “-feira” form when speaking clearly or writing formally - so it is worth being comfortable with both the short and long versions.
Portuguese, especially the Brazilian variety, has a musical, syllable-timed feel that is different from the stress-heavy rhythm of English. In English, “Wednesday” collapses into two beats with the second one nearly swallowed. In Portuguese, quarta-feira keeps four fairly even syllables - kwar-tah-FAY-rah - with only a light stress on “kwar” and a slightly stronger one on “FAY.” Learners who rush the word and squeeze it into an English two-beat rhythm end up dropping the nasal vowels and the R sound almost entirely, which is why slowing down actually helps accuracy more than it does in English.
This matters most for the three-syllable numbers - segunda, terça, quinta - where English speakers often stress the wrong syllable by analogy with similar-looking English words. Segunda is not “se-GUN-da” with heavy stress on the middle; it is “seh-GOON-dah,” with a longer, nasalized second syllable and a soft, almost unstressed final “dah.” Practicing the number alone, away from “-feira,” before combining the two halves makes the correct rhythm far easier to lock in.
These are the errors English speakers make most often:
The seven days are domingo (Sunday), segunda-feira (Monday), terça-feira (Tuesday), quarta-feira (Wednesday), quinta-feira (Thursday), sexta-feira (Friday) and sábado (Saturday). Five of them are simply numbered, from “second” to “sixth,” with the shared ending “-feira.”
The system comes from the early Christian Church, which numbered the days of the week to avoid the pagan planetary names used elsewhere in Europe. Bishop Martin of Braga promoted this ecclesiastical numbering in 6th-century Iberia, and it became permanent in Portuguese while most other Romance languages kept the old planet names.
No - it marks a nasal vowel rather than a separate consonant. The vowel is spoken through the nose, so segunda is /seˈgũ.dɐ/ (“seh-GOON-dah” through the nose), not “se-GUN-da” with a hard English N.
“Feira” is pronounced /ˈfej.ɾɐ/, “FAY-rah,” with stress on the first syllable and a single light tap on the “r,” similar to the “tt” sound in the American pronunciation of “butter.” It never changes, no matter which number precedes it.
Use the practice tool above to check your pronunciation of each day with real audio feedback. Boa prática! And once you have all seven days locked in, you will hear this exact rhythm and vowel pattern echoed throughout everyday Brazilian conversation.
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