While flipping the pages of a Brazilian book entitled “Your trip to the United States” I came across a section describing the pronunciation of some American place names:

Albuquerque	ALbácâr-rqui
Arkansas	Arquen-só;
Baton Rouge	Bêiten-Ruz
Des Moines	Di-MÓin
Houston	Rúston
La Jolla	La Rôla
Los Ângeles	Lôs Éndjeles
Michigan	MÉchégan
New Orleans	Nul Órli-ins/Órlan-s
St. Louis	Sein-t LUL-is
Syracuse	Sir-raquiuce
Tucson	Tchú-san
Yosemite	Iâ-CIM-iti

In case it is not obvious, the words in the right-hand column are supposed to approximate *American* pronunciation of the place names, using Portuguese pronunciation rules. E.g., "Rúston" would be pronounced roughly like "Hoo-stung" in Portuguese (or "Hoo-shtung" if you are in Rio), thus approximating American pronunciation. This may not seem to be all that close, but consider that applying Portuguese phonetic rules directory to "Houston" would render "Oh-stung," so "Hoo-stung" is a bit of an improvement. (Since final "n" in Portuguese words is always nasalized, it is more or less impossible to approximate the name of the city better than "Hoo-stung" - just like you can't really approximate the pronunciation of "São Paulo" using English spelling rules.) Some of the suggested pronunciation appear to be simply wrong, however (e.g. for Tucson), which would probably be better approximated by "Tu-san."