7 French pronunciation rules you absolutely must know

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The French don't understand you well when you speak? Do you feel like you're mispronouncing certain words in the language of Molière? If you want to speak like a native speaker , there are a few French pronunciation rules to know. Discover 7 of them in today's lesson. These principles will help you improve your French pronunciation and gain confidence. Let's go!

1. The stress falls on the last syllable.
The stress or accentuation consists of emphasizing a syllable by pronouncing it with more intensity . For example, in the word "sofa", you can emphasize:

In French, the stress is placed on the last syllable of a word. So, to speak like a French speaker, you have to make the last syllable of a word last a little longer . For example, in the word "interesting", the stress is on the syllable "sant". So you have to lengthen it slightly.


What happens when I say a whole sentence? Where should I place the stress? In French, we speak in groups of words. We pause briefly at the end of an idea . That's where we're going to place the stress.

Ex: Last night , my mother called me while I was at the movies .

As you can see, the stress is placed on the last syllable of each group of ideas: " soir ", " lé " and " ma ".

Note: accentuation has no relation to graphic signs such as the acute accent (é) or the grave accent (è).

2. The final e of a word is silent.
Silent letters in French

The vowel e at the end of a word is not pronounced. The letter is said to be silent. The last sound pronounced is the preceding letter.

Ex .: She went to France .

In this example, we pronounce the sounds l , i and c but not the sound e .

However, we pronounce the e in one-syllable words like "je", "le", "te", "me", "de", etc.:

I 'm going to the swimming pool.
Do n't make fun of me !
She asked him
3. Consonants at the end of words are not pronounced.
As a general rule, the final consonant of a word is not pronounced. It is therefore a silent letter like the final e .

Ex.: word , pink s , voice , big d


Sometimes these silent letters have grammatical functions. For example, they are used to mark the plural of nouns and adjectives like s and x .

Ex : good boys , two black horses

They sometimes represent verb endings like s , t , and nt .

Ex: you're kidding , it was raining , they were dancing

4. A double consonant is pronounced like a single one.
In written French, you can see words south africa whatsapp number data that contain two of the same consonants that follow each other, as in the words "personne" or "galette". Even if these letters follow each other, you should not lengthen the sound. A double consonant is pronounced like a single consonant.

So, rr is pronounced like r and ff is pronounced like f , etc. There is one exception: the s . Alone, it is pronounced either like an s ("Saturday") or like a z ("poison"). In double, it is pronounced only like an s ("fish").