One of the trickiest aspects of French pronunciation for learners is liaison – the smooth linking of a normally silent final consonant to the beginning of the following word when that word starts with a vowel or a silent “h”. Knowing when to do a liaison and when to avoid it is key to sounding…
Some French words, like contact, have a clearly pronounced -ct, while others, like aspect, have a silent -ct. This difference is due to phonetic evolution, word stress, and borrowing history. 1. The Role of Stress and Borrowing History 2. When is -CT Pronounced in French? The -ct is pronounced when: 3. When is -CT Silent?…
In French, the presence or absence of the “r” sound at the end of a word can drastically change its meaning. Many words that look similar can have entirely different definitions, because of this small difference in pronunciation. Here are a few examples, but other combinations may exist. 1. Le vs. Leur 2. Peux/peut vs….
A common pronunciation mistake by French learners is the letter “x” and the letter combination “ex.” To fix these mistakes, we need to start at with the French alphabet and the letter “x.” In French, “x” in the alphabet is not pronounced EX like it is in English. Instead, it is pronounced EEKS. That’s important…
One of the essential differences between the English and French languages is the concept of “le flux sonore,” or “sound flow” in French. A French sentence should sound like a more or less continuous flow of sound, interrupted only by small pauses for commas and longer pauses for full stops. In order to achieve this,…
The pronunciation of the French words “six” (6) and “dix” (10) is a bit unusual. There are three ways of pronouncing the final “x.” When counting, eg from 1 to 10, “six” is pronounced SEESS and “dix” is pronounced DEESS. So the last letter sounds like a soft “s” sound. When saying something like “six…
The letter “c” can be pronounced in two different ways in French. It can be hard, like the first “c” in the word “coriace,” meaning “tough,” “leathery,” or “hard-headed,” pronounced [KOH REE AHSS]. Or it can be soft, like the last “c” in “coriace.” How do you know whether a “c” will be hard or…
The letter “g” can be pronounced in two different ways in French. It can be hard, like the first “g” in the word “garage,” which is both a French word and an English word. Or it can be soft, like the last “g” in “garage.” How do you know whether a “g” will be hard…
French words like “démocratie,” “acrobatie,” “aristocratie,” or “patienter” all contain the letter combination “tie.” How are words like these pronounced in French? What about words like “amnistie” or “dynastie”? The “tie” letter combination in French can either be pronounced as “SEE” or as “TEE.” How do you know which pronunciation to use? The easiest way…
When “em” and “en” are used as prefixes (meaning at the start of a word) in French, they are always nasal vowels. Prefix Example Phonetics Audio em- emmener ɑ̃mne emmener em- empirer ɑ̃piʀe empirer en- enamourer ɑ̃namuʀe enamourer en- ennuyer ɑ̃nɥije ennuyer But be careful “én” (with an acute accent) is not the same as…