French Pronunciation Traps: The Words Learners Get Wrong

Most French pronunciation traps come from French spelling keeping letters it no longer says, and from a handful of common words that break their own spelling rules. The big ones for English speakers: the silent -ent in verbs like ils parlent, words that change sound with meaning like fils (son) and plus (more), ville and fille rhyming on paper but not aloud, a single s versus ss turning poison into poisson, and everyday words like monsieur and femme that sound nothing like they look. Here they are with how each one is actually said, so you can stop guessing.

Pronunciations below are given in IPA, between slashes, and that is the reference to trust. Where a plain-English hint appears, it’s support for finding the sound, not a substitute for the IPA.

The silent verb ending -ent

The -ent at the end of a third-person plural verb is completely silent. Ils parlent (they speak) sounds exactly like il parle (he speaks); elles mangent (they eat) like elle mange. You can only tell them apart from context — or from liaison, when the next word begins with a vowel: ils_ont (they have) has a /z/ that il a (he has) doesn’t.

The trap runs the other way, too. Adverbs ending in -ment and nouns ending in -ent are not silent: lentement (slowly), souvent (often) and le vent (the wind) all end in the nasal vowel /ɑ̃/. It’s only the verb ending that disappears.

Words that change sound with meaning

A few French words are spelled the same but pronounced differently depending on what they mean:

Plus is the one you’ll meet daily. When plus means “no more,” final S is normally silent. When it means “more” at the end of a phrase, S is commonly pronounced. Because speakers often omit ne, context matters: je n’en veux plus (I don’t want any more) is /ply/, but so, in casual speech, is j’en veux plus with the same meaning — while j’en veux plus meaning “I want more” is /plys/.

Two further cases work differently again:

• deux plus deux (two plus two): in arithmetic the S is said, /plys/.
• plus important (more important): before a vowel, plus links with a liaison /z/.

-ille: usually /j/, sometimes /l/

The ending -ille is normally said with the glide /j/, like the y of yes: fille (girl, daughter) is /fij/, famille is /fa.mij/, travailler (to work) is /tʁa.va.je/. But a small, common group keeps a real /l/:

• ville (town) — /vil/
• mille (thousand) — /mil/
• tranquille (calm) — /tʁɑ̃.kil/

Since ville and fille look like perfect rhymes, getting this wrong is close to universal. Learn those three as exceptions and you’ve covered most of it.

One s or two

Between two vowels, a single s sounds like /z/; a double ss stays /s/. That one letter changes the word:

Baiser has /z/; baisser has /s/. Ordering du poison in a restaurant is a joke every French teacher has heard. It’s worth the minute it takes to get right.

Words that don’t match their spelling

• monsieur — /mə.sjø/, not mon-sieur. The first syllable has a light schwa.
• femme (woman) — /fam/, rhyming with madame.
• second (second) — /sə.ɡɔ̃/; the c sounds like a g.
• oignon (onion) — /ɔ.ɲɔ̃/; the i is silent.
• août (August) — /u/ or /ut/; both are heard, and neither says the a.
• sept (seven) — /sɛt/; the p is silent.
• œil /œj/ (“eye”) versus yeux /jø/ (“eyes”): different vowels and different placement of the /j/ glide.

Numbers before a vowel

Several numbers change their final sound depending on what follows. Six and dix are the clearest case:

Huit (eight) is /ɥit/ alone and before a vowel, but often /ɥi/ before a consonant: huit jours (eight days).

The final T of vingt is silent when the word stands alone. It is heard in many compounds from 21 to 29, but not normally in vingt-deux; vingt-huit varies.

Cent ans (a hundred years) links: /sɑ̃.tɑ̃/. Cent alone is just /sɑ̃/.

The h aspiré

French h is never pronounced. But some words beginning with h, mostly borrowed from Germanic languages, behave as though they start with a consonant. Despite the name, an h aspiré is not audibly aspirated: it simply blocks liaison and elision.

• les héros (the heroes) — /le.e.ʁo/, no /z/. With liaison, it sounds like les zéros (the zeros).
• le haricot (the bean) — not l’haricot.
• la Hollande, le hockey, la honte (shame), le hasard (chance).

Compare l’homme (the man) and les_hommes (the men), where the h is mute and both elision and liaison happen as normal. There’s no visible marker; dictionaries flag h aspiré with an asterisk or apostrophe.

Making the corrections stick

These are worth practicing in sentences, not as single words, because the sound often depends on its neighbors: Ils ont six enfants (they have six children) has two liaisons you’d miss saying each word alone. Pick three sentences that use the words you keep getting wrong — Je voudrais du poisson, Il habite en ville, Bonjour, monsieur — and practice them with a native recording until they come out right at full speed.

To do that with a native voice slowed down for you, then brought back up to speed and returned in review a few days later, try Fluency Refrain for iPhone and type in the first French sentence that comes to mind.

Where to go next

• French, start to finish: How to improve your French pronunciation — rhythm, vowels, nasals, the R and liaison.
• The method itself: The shadowing technique, and the chorusing variant.
• Stuck on a plateau: Why your accent isn’t improving.
• How the app does it: How chorusing works in Fluency Refrain.