Travel Reference
In-Depth Information
French, of course, uses the Roman alphabet, and many
letters are pronounced in the same way as in English. But
letters are often pronounced according to their position in
a word, and some are silent, such as the 's' or the 'x' when
they appear at the end of words. The letter 'e' at the end of
a word is not pronounced, unless it is accented. In fact, if a
verb (for example, in the third person plural form) ends in
'ent', none of those letters are pronounced. So, '
ils doivent
'
(they must) is pronounced 'eel doive'.
Also, the French do not usually pronounce the last
consonant of any word, but this too can vary. If a word
following one ending in a consonant begins with a vowel,
that final consonant is pronounced, elided into the next word.
So, if someone tells you that they slept
dix heures
(10 hours),
what you will hear is 'deeser'. It can be complicated, for when
someone tells you they have used
huit oeufs
(eight eggs) in
their omelette, you will hear 'weeter', for not only has the last
consonant of the word '
huit
' been elided into the following
vowel, the final 's' in the word '
oeufs
' is unpronounced, as
is the final consonant that precedes it. Do not give up hope,
soon you'll get the hang of it too!
In terms of names, for the most part they follow the same
rules. So although people—especially foreigners—might have
their own ways of pronouncing their names, the French
generally pronounce them in a French way. Thus, the name
of the Italian poet Dante is pronounced 'Dahnt' and the
ladies' dress shop Weill is pronounced 'Vey'. Sometimes
the pronunciation of names is unclear even to Parisians: for
example, the street name rue Desaix is pronounced by some
as 'desay' and others as 'desex'.
Don't give up. Do your best and listen to how the French
pronounce words and your pronunciation will improve. If
French kids can learn all this, so can you.
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