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Pronouncing s at the end?

  Tags: Pronunciation | French
 Language Learning Forum : Français Post Reply
13 messages over 2 pages: 1
yong321
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 Message 9 of 13
11 April 2013 at 7:34pm | IP Logged 
Thank you, all! And particularly to Ogrim. I should have checked the French Wikipedia page where the pronunciation is given. (I only checked the English page.)

Now I know the Google translator's pronunciation is not completely right: "c" is incorrectly pronounced as "k", although the ending "s" is pronounced.

Edited by yong321 on 11 April 2013 at 7:36pm

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FELlX
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 Message 10 of 13
11 April 2013 at 10:20pm | IP Logged 
The "C" was tricky there because of the "œ" ligature, which is usually pronounced like a normal "e" (while "æ" appears to be pronounced like an "é").

Edited by FELlX on 11 April 2013 at 10:22pm

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Ogrim
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 Message 11 of 13
12 April 2013 at 10:58am | IP Logged 
FELlX wrote:
The "C" was tricky there because of the "œ" ligature, which is usually pronounced like a normal "e" (while "æ" appears to be pronounced like an "é").


I thought C before œ would always be pronounced "K", like in cœur. However, investingating a bit I found the following in French and English Wikipedia respectively:

"On énonce parfois une « règle » voulant qu'en français, la ligature œ se prononce comme « eu » lorsqu’elle est suivie d’une voyelle, et comme « é » lorsqu’elle est suivie d’une consonne. Il s’agit là d’un procédé mnémotechnique, qui peut être utile, mais reste susceptible d’exceptions, et surtout, sans aucune valeur linguistique. La seule règle rigoureuse est celle de l’étymologie latine (prononciation : /ø/ ou /œ/) ou grecque (prononciation : /e/ ou /ɛ/) dans tous les cas."

" It is most prominent in the words mœurs ("mores", almost exclusively employed in its plural form; mœur is masculine in the singular and feminine in the plural), cœur ("heart"), sœur ("sister"), œuf ("egg"), œuvre ("work") and œil ("eye"), in which the digraph œu, like eu, represents the sound [œ] or [ø]. French also uses œ in direct borrowings from Latin and Greek. So, "cœliac" in French is cœliaque. In such cases, the œ is pronounced [e]."

"Cœliac" is pronounced /se.ljak/ according to my dictionary, so clearly the rule must be that if the œ is pronounced [é], a preceding C is pronounced [s].



Edited by Ogrim on 12 April 2013 at 10:59am

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maucca
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 Message 12 of 13
13 April 2013 at 12:06pm | IP Logged 
Cabaire wrote:

Maybe someone can remember more usual words, which end in -ès? The capital is of course "Londres"


Some examples are abcès [absɛ; apsɛ], accès [aksɛ], exprès [ɛkspʀɛ], herpès [ɛʀpɛs], progrès [pʀɔgʀɛ], succès [syksɛ].
These are quite easy to find if you have "Le Grand Robert de la langue française" dictionary, using its wildcard search. It's also possible to do a phonetic search, for example to find words pronounced [-es] or [-ɛs] : aloès [alɔɛs], cacatoès, kakatoès [kakatɔɛs] fèces [fɛs].
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NewLanguageGuy
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 Message 13 of 13
14 April 2013 at 1:52pm | IP Logged 
Not forgetting regional differences.

EG - people in parts of southwest France pronounce the "s" at the end of "moins"....


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