A French word may be easily recognizable on the printed page and yet sound quite different from what an English-speaking student might expect. Nasal vowels are a case in point. In words like bon, blanc, pain, and lundi, the letters don’t necessarily require you to pronounce all of the consonants individually; part of the sound…
You see the word petit, pronounce every single letter, and your t comes out clearly at the end. You hear a French speaker record a similar phrase, and they don’t seem to pronounce that final consonant. This happens with grand, vous, parler, beaucoup, and many more words. There are many final consonants in written French…
In French, a noun is more helpful if you also know which article belongs to it. Don’t learn table as table; learn it as la table. Don’t store book as livre; keep le livre as one piece. Why? Because French nouns are either masculine or feminine, and their gender can influence articles, adjectives, and other…
J’ai mal. J’ai un café. Je vais au travail. Je fais une pause. Ces quatre phrases courtes utilisent quatre verbes différents qui sont utilisés tout le temps dans la conversation française normale : être, avoir, aller et faire. Ils sont irréguliers, et comme ils sont utilisés si fréquemment, vous pourriez avoir du mal à distinguer…