How to Learn French - Rule of thumb

Bref et concis* but a really good précision* for many, today we’re talking about one of the most mispronounced words in French: the word for woman (or wife), femme.

Most often, we hear this mispronounced as rhyming with the English word ‘gem’, rather than the word ‘thumb’, which the sound resembles most closely.

I remember being so surprised when I learned that the e in words containing the combination emm in French was pronounced as though it was a French a sound. If you’ve been following these posts, you’ll know that the anchor word I use for a in French is ça va. And if you’ve done your devoirs*, you’ll also know that sound is very close to the u sound in the English word ‘cup’. Read on for some more illuminations* (hopefully)…

By the way, it’s not just femme that has this English u sound. Here are a few others to ponder.

femme
évidemment
fréquemment
différemment
patiemment

If you’ve been trying out your French on native-speakers for a decent period of time, I am confident you would’ve already been (kindly) corrected on your pronunciation of this word. I certainly was (more than once, until it clicked), but I thought it must have been an exception. In fact, it’s not, it’s just that the combination of emm in the middle of a word makes that ‘u’ sound we’ve been talking about.

Alors, voilà!* Only one square added this time, but an important one, nonetheless.

*Short and sweet | *clarification | *homework | *lightbulb moments | *So there you go