French Help!!!

College Confidential Community
1

<p>For all those that know French…</p>

<p>how do you know when something’s silent at the end? I know the letters that are suppose to signify a silence (like e(t))</p>

<p>but how do you know like this </p>

<p>le and le(s)?</p>

<p><em>goes insane</em></p>

2

<p>are you asking how you know whether or not to sound out the s at the end of words?
if the word after the les begins with a vowel, you usually sound out the s
ex- les afriques</p>

3

<p>yes…I don’t know French, obviously, and was just wondering on pronounciation…</p>

4

<p>if the next word after the le or les is a vowel, you just sound it out like its one word</p>

5

<p>when in doubt just don’t pronounce the last letter of the word.</p>

6

<p>^^^^^^</p>

<p>unless there is an accent on it.</p>

7

<p>ya… I know about the e’ thingy</p>

8

<p>Most last letters in French are not pronounced. As a rule, the only ones that are usually are consonants with the beginning letter of the next word a vowel or the letter “H.” Then, you carry over the sound of the last letter to connect the two words. This is called “liason,” a word you probably know.</p>

<p>Ex:
“The friends went to the beach.”
*Les amis sont allee a la plage.<a href=“sorry,%20no%20accent%20marks”>/i</a>
The “s” in “les” would be pronounced because you would connect the words “les” and “amis.”</p>

<p>“The boys are very fast.”
Les garcons sont tres vites.
The “s” would not be pronounced because the next letter is not a vowel or the ever-silent letter “H.”</p>

9

<p>how do you know when listening if it is plural because isn’t the conjugation silent sometimes?</p>

10

<p>You know if it’s plural from the article in front of it (les vs. le/la, etc.).</p>

11

<p>word…how useful is french in NC there leah?</p>

12

<p>…it’s not.</p>

<p>But it’s pretty :)</p>

13

<p>but…what if it is silent? (the les)?</p>

14

<p>you’d know by the conjugation of the verb…(i.e. est/sont)</p>

15

<p>Well, le and les sound different too. le sounds like “lugh” and les sounds like “lays”.</p>

16

<p>I thought it was only pronounced in front of a vowel?</p>

17

<p>its like bern said- you can just go by the conjugation of the verb</p>

18

<p>but isn’t est said like “e”</p>

19

<p>more like hey w/o the h if you’re talking about the etre verb</p>

20

<p>how would you pronounce this:</p>

<p>ces gants</p>

<p>are un and une said the same?</p>