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…
How do you pronounce the letters “im” or “in” when they occur at the start of a word in French? Are they nasal or not? As you can see in the two tables below, the rules are simple. “im” or “in” plus a consonant are nasal. But “imm,” “inn,” “im + vowel,” or “in +…