Silent final consonants, and the CaReFuL exceptions
A consonant is any letter that is not a vowel: b, c, d and so on. At the end of a French word, most consonants are written but not said. Old French did pronounce them; the spelling kept them after the sound wore away. Four letters usually survive at the end of a word: c, r, f, l. English speakers remember them with the word CaReFuL.
The biggest group of exceptions to CaReFuL is the -er ending of verbs. A verb is a doing word, and thousands of French verbs end in -er in their dictionary form: parler (to speak), manger (to eat). There the r is silent and -er sounds “ay”: par-LAY. How these verbs change for “I”, “you” and “we” is in the course map on the French hub.
Silent e, and the silent -ent of verbs
A final e without an accent is not pronounced, but it does a job: it makes the consonant before it audible. Compare petit, where the t is silent, with petite, where the t is said. The e itself makes no sound. This one letter is how French marks many feminine words in speech.
Liaison: when the silent letter comes back
Liaison (lee-eh-ZOH(N)), French for “link”, happens when a word ends in a silent consonant and the next word starts with a vowel sound. The consonant is pronounced, but it moves across and starts the next word. The two words must belong tightly together, such as “the” and its noun, or “we” and its verb. Some links are required, some are forbidden, and the rest are optional and sound more formal.
Letters change sound in liaison
When a silent letter comes back, it does not always return with its usual sound. Three changes cover almost every case.
| Written | Said as | Example | |
|---|---|---|---|
| s, x | z | deux ansduh-ZAH(N) · two years | |
| d | t | un grand hommeuh(n) grah(n)-TOM · a great man | |
| f | v | neuf ansnuh-VAH(N) · nine years (only before ans and heures) | |
| n | n | mon amimoh(n)-nah-MEE · my friend: the nasal vowel stays and an n is added |
Elision: the apostrophe that replaces a vowel
Liaison adds a sound between two vowels. Elision (ay-lee-ZYOH(N)) removes one. Ten short words lose their final vowel before a word starting with a vowel or silent h, and an apostrophe takes its place: le, la, je, me, te, se, de, ne, que, and si before il.
L’homme but le héros: the two kinds of h
French h is never pronounced. But words starting with h come in two kinds. Most have an h muet (“mute h”): they behave as if they start with a vowel, so you get elision (l’) and liaison. A few, mostly borrowed from Germanic languages, have an h aspiré: still silent, but it blocks both. Dictionaries mark these with an asterisk or a ’ sign.
Six, dix, huit: numbers that change their ending
A few numbers have three pronunciations, depending on what follows: alone, before a consonant, or before a vowel.
| Number | Alone | + consonant | + vowel |
|---|---|---|---|
| six | SEES | six livres: SEE | six amis: SEEZ |
| dix | DEES | dix jours: DEE | dix ans: DEEZ |
| huit | WEET | huit livres: WEE | huit ans: WEET |
| cinq | SANK | cinq livres: SAN(K) | cinq ans: SANK |