Bonjour!

We’re only going to add one tiny square in this instalment, but once again, it’s an important one.

The pronunciation of words like fille* and famille* is confusing to many, myself included in the earlier years. I remember never being 100% confident even though they’re relatively basic words, and ones that come up a lot.

I can now see why I was so confused. At around the same time, I was learning some other very useful words, such as ville*, mille* and tranquille*, which, as you may know, are not pronounced in the same way as those to which I’ve referred above.

Mais pourquoi pas*? It may surprise you to know that there is a method in this apparent madness. That is, the pronunciation of each of these words can be predicted to a large degree, so it’s best to learn the rule rather than faire à l’arrache*.

This is the default rule for the pronunciation of words containing I-L-L-E. If you’re ever not sure, go with the pronunciation below. I can’t promise you you’ll be right, but you’ll at least have backed the horse with the shortest odds:

the combination of the letters I-L-L-E produces a sound I don’t believe we have in English, but which is a combination of the English letters ‘e’ and ‘y’.

To really nail the sound in French, you’ll need to go back to your anchor word for the letter i, whether that be lit*, ici*, voici* or even something else - maybe merci*?). The tricky bit is that the L-L-E letters that follow it together make a sound akin to an English ‘y’, such as the ‘y’ sound in the word ‘yellow’. So now we have a French i combined with an English ‘y’ sound. If you’re finding that hard to imagine, trying pronouncing the English word ‘key’ and emphasising the ‘y’ sound a little bit. This will get you quite close to the sound we’re after. Imagine then, that instead of saying the word ‘key’, you’re now saying the word ‘fee’ in English. Now pretend there’s a ‘y’ on the end of it. Bravo*! You’ve just made a very good pass at pronouncing the French word for girl, fille.

Now for des précisions*. Be sure to make the i sound of fille very short and tight. Remember, it should rhyme with lit, ici or voici, not the more elongated double ‘e’s of the English words ‘keep’, ‘sleep’ and ‘tree’.

famille
cheville*
Bastille

(*ankle)

Alors voilà*! This is the rule for how the I-L-L-E sound is pronounced. Facile, non*?

Now I know you’d be disappointed if there were no exceptions to this rule, so allow me not to briser ton cœur*. There are. There doesn’t seem to be any rime ou raison*, though, so here are the most common rule-breakers. With these petits rebelles*, remember to sound the ‘l’s (so ville will rhyme with the English word ‘fill’) and you’ll be sur la bonne piste*.

ville
mille
tranquille
Lille

The rest are better to learn as you go, I think. They’re fairly obscure words and even if someone does correct you, you’ll likely forget by the time you go to use them again, if you ever do (I’m still waiting for my second chance to use bacille*, for example).

By the way, if ever you have any questions about these articles, please feel free to leave a comment below and I’ll do my very best to help you.

How to Learn French - what the 'ell?