Abstract
<jats:title>Abstract</jats:title> <jats:p>This chapter introduces the main features concerning the phonetics of three varieties of Portuguese: European, Brazilian, and Angolan. The inventories and distribution of consonants, vowels, and semivowels are presented in relation to syllable structure and stress position as well as phonological processes. Commonalities and differences among the three varieties are also illustrated by waveforms and spectrograms for the sake of making a point clearer, mostly when contrasting European and Brazilian Portuguese. Among the Romance languages, Portuguese strikes by rich phenomena involving diphthongs, vowel nasalization, “r” realization variability, vowel reduction, harmony, elision, and epenthesis, in addition to contrasting two rhotic and lateral phonemes.</jats:p>