Impress the French – Hard French common words to read #3
Impress the French Challenge: Let’s impress the French together by learning these TEN common yet oddly spelled French words! Are you ready?
#1 Les yeux Alors on va commencer avec les yeux… Let’s start with a plural noun… The eyes in French is pronounced Les yeux with a Z sound,.. The spelling is Y. E.U.X … You don’t pronounce the X….YeuxLes yeux…..same sounds that Butter…..
#2 Oeil Since we are talking about eyes in plural, let’s talk about eye is singular,, oeil…. Yes, the spelling is O.E.I.L and the pronunciation is OEIL with the same sound that butter and the same sound that in Yes or You… OEIL…. This noun is masculine in French, meaning the article in front of it will be either un … un oeil… you like… un oeil… or if you use a definite article such as The… then you have to say … l’oeil… l’oeil because OEIL starts with a vowel…
#3 Garçon… Please don’t say ‘Garsonne’ or ‘Garconne’… the C comes with a cédille which turns the K sound into a S sound like seven… and then we don’t have diphtongues in French meaning the cluster ‘ON” makes one sound… ON,try it, make a O and left the back of your tongue…o/on…o/on… Garçon means ‘boy’ and never calls a waiter ‘Garçon’… I repeat never call a waiter ‘Garçon’.. un garçon … le garçon….
#4 Croissant… Let’s try together .. I know you think you know how to pronounce it…… Let’s remember we don’t pronounce consonant at the end of French words… and the cluster ‘OI’… makes the sound ‘wa’ like in ‘what’ …. ‘CR’ is actually hard… croissant… croissant… croissant is a masculine noun, un croissant… le croissant….
#5 Saucisson…. Un saucisson… This is a dry sausage, closed to salami… ‘AU’ makes the sound ‘O’, and double S in French makes the sound ’S’ like in seven, and of course ‘ON’ is ‘ON’.. if you are new here, I invite you to listen to my previous podcast about the sound ‘ON’… Try to make’O’ with you mouth and then lift the back of your tongue O/ON… le saucisson … le saucisson
#6 Meilleur… Can you guess the meaning ? Meilleur means better….Meilleur is a comparative… The sound is ‘y’ like ‘you’ or ‘yes’ as most words spelled with ‘ILL’… Meilleur…. C’est meilleur means ‘this is better’… Meilleur
#7 équipe… Une équipe ou l’équipe…. Please dont say ‘Eqwiped’…. The ‘QU” is pronounced with a ‘K’ sound….. Une équipe is a team… Yes, l’équipe de France ….The French team… Une équipe, the noun is feminine….
#8 Prix…. Le prix…. Le prix means the price… the ‘PR’ sound is a little hard but please do not voice the X at the end of PRIX…. Le prix, un prix…. This is a masculine noun and always spelled with X, even when singular….
#9 Faïence… La faïence…. The spelling has a ‘trema’ which is the double dot on the vowel ‘I’. When you see this double dots on a vowel, you have voice this vowel independently of the others meaning when usually ‘A+I’ in French creates one sound (é) in this case, you will voice the ‘A’ and the ‘I’ to create the diphthong ‘I’… la faïence means ceramic… la faïence….
#10 Fils…. Le fils…. That noun has a ‘L’ at the end that is not pronounced… Most of my student stumble when they read it…You have to ignore that ‘L’… Le fils…Un fils…. With a ’S’ sound like seven…. Un fils is a son in English … C’est mon fils… This is my son…
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