Bonjour!

Since I’ve been writing this series on pronunciation it’s been top of mind and I’ve been keeping a little list of some of the words students have the most trouble pronouncing.

I’m not talking les bêtes noires* of French pronunciation such as écureuil* and grenouille* here (they can wait for later), but words that are used every day in French which are often mispronounced.

I’ve come to realise that one of the areas where students have the least confidence is in pronouncing the months of the year. Not all, mind. The first couple and the last three are a doddle, it’s just the middle months where things seem to get a bit tricky.

So let’s have a look at them and see if we can fix them once and for all.

Be sure to pronounce the final letters on these two. This is an instance where the general rule of not pronouncing final consonants is broken.

Make sure you’re sounding the ‘s’ on mars as ‘ss’ not a ‘z’ sound as in maison. We, as tutors, hear a lot of ‘marz’, but the correct pronunciation has it sounding like ‘marss’.

Split this word right down the middle to help make pronouncing it easier.
You’ll see you have two parts: ju and in.
The best technique is to then think of two words that resemble those sounds.
For me, ju looks like tu and I certainly know how to pronounce that (and am very confident you do, too).
And, like most Aussies, in just screams the word vin for me, and I think (hope?) we all know the correct pronunciation for that. If you don’t, think of vingt, intelligent, matin, cinq and jardin. I’m sure you can hear at least one of those in sounds ringing in your ears.

This is the month of the year that seems to bring (almost) everyone undone and it’s not hard to see why.

Firstly, it just looks like a jumble of letters, with frankly too many vowels in a row for most of our tastes. Secondly, is the ill sound pronounced ille as in famille or ille as in ville. Read on.

Again, the most helpful trick is to break the word down into sounds.
Ju we have covered above - think of tu.
The sound ill in juillet is pronounced as it is in famille, that is, with a y sound rather than an l sound.
the sound et at the end of a word is exactly the same as the é in café which I’m confident you know how to pronounce.
Now put them all together, but remain careful to pronounce each sound distinctly at first. Repeat a few times, then try to repeat slight faster with each essai*. You’ll notice that the ju and the i sound (of ill) start to blend together to rhyme with the ui sound in suis.
Keep saying it faster until it becomes two syllables instead of three, something like: ‘jwee-é’. Voilà*.

At first glance, this word is almost impossible to pronounce with any confidence whatsoever, but thankfully, it’s a lot easier than it looks.

The a is completely silent
the circumflex has no bearing on the pronunciation
You’re left, therefore, with just two sounds: ou as in vous and t as in, well, t!
If I write it in English letters, I’d write: ‘oot’. However, that risks the reader pronouncing it like the ‘oot’ sound in the English word ‘boot’, which is close but not quite right.
Better to think of the ou sound in vous and add a t at the end. Like the French word route but without the r.

If you’ve been following along with this series, you’ve likely been thinking about pronunciation more than you may have normally. Ça fait bon signe*.

It took me a very long time to take pronunciation seriously and even when I did, it was a good couple of years before the rules of pronunciation started to really gel. So don’t be hard on yourself, just chip away at it, as we have today, peu à peu*. Remember, the trick is to have an anchor word that you absolutely know how to pronounce for each sound so that you can refer back to them whenever you strike a nouveau mot*.

Bon courage et à bientôt* !

How to learn French - Winter blues