Some brightness for your weekend. Enjoy! Photo taken in Paris.
Beautifully renovated and decorated home in the Luberon. 4 bedrooms and a study with a sofa bed, each with ensuite (full) bath. This villa comfortably sleeps 7-9 adults.
What are the hardest French words to pronounce?
Longtime reader, Hampton, forwarded me an article from The Local listing Ten French Words You’ll Never Pronounce Right, including mille-feuille, pneu, grenouille, and serrurerie.
Eep! Tell me about it!
Hampton suggested I get Jean-Marc or Jackie or Max to pronounce these tongue tricky words. But because my family is away at the moment, I thought you and I could make our own list, here, and then have our resident Francophones choose ten of them to record. Sound good? Are you chiche, or up for it? I am–I can’t WAIT to know which words you find difficult to pronounce.
Allons-y! Lets go!
Tell us what are the hardest French words to pronounce. Click here.
As for me, I cannot for the life of me say the word TRUFFE. Don’t believe it? Here goes: Download MP3 or Download Wav
Truffe! J’adore manger les truffes!
Truffles. I love to eat truffles!
(Did you hear Jean-Marc laughing in the background? “Pourquoi tu le prononce comme ça?” he says.) CLICK HERE to tell us which French words are hardest to pronounce.
SABLET HOME for high quality vacation rentals in the heart of Provence. Particularly suited to groups of up to four discerning travelers: www.sablethome.com
If you follow me on Facebook or Instagram, you’ve seen the rest of these photos and stories by now…
The Little French Seamstress. Celebrating with my 17-year-old in Cassis, after she was accepted for a second internship (this one in Marseilles). Jackie will be apprenticing for a Tunisian-French woman who once sewed uniforms for the French military and now runs her own business from her tiny living room. Sales recently took off when same sex marriage became legal in France. “It’s fun designing for grooms,” she says. Should be a great experience for Jackie.
Fig trees, olive trees, and umbrella pines, below. In the center, a stone cabanon; the new red door has many past lives: it floundered for a time at the junk store, then moved to a wall inside our house. Next it filled in a gap below our kitchen window. We then moved, taking the old red door (really a shutter) along with us to Bandol, where it found purpose as a gate on the dog run….only to become a foot bridge between unlevelled land. Last week we dusted it off and leaned it gently against the little stone cabanon. I think it finally found a home!
COMMENTS welcome here, and don’t forget to mention which word you have the most difficulty saying in French. Merci et bon week-end!
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agent immobiliere … usually I just tell people “je vend des maisons”
Marie
Luckily they can’t hear that I left the “s” off vends….. 😉
Words with ‘eu’, like leur, veux, peux, etc., are difficult for me to pronounce.
Absolument, sans doute: écureuil!
One of my first challenges in French was “écureuil ” (squirrel). Also “libellule” can be sioux!
I live in Provence.
I get laughs from my landlady when I try to say “fourrure (nf)”. It has both “r” and “u” that are difficult for an American to say.
Also, I have learned to say the letter “O” correctly.
Try pronouncing “olive” or “Oscar”
The first letter is pronounced “oh” and not “ah”.
They say the “r” and the “u” are the most difficult letters to pronounce for English speakers. A reader asked for a sentence that combines “wheel” with “street”…That could be “La roue roule dans la rue.”
That sounds like a bit of a tongue twister, which is another fun way to practice pronunciation.
“Suis-je bien chez ce cher Serge?”
“Un chasseur, sachant chasser, doit savoir chasser sans son chien.”
…and there are many more!
Several years ago on a Sunday morning I went to our local chocolatier for a post dinner treat. I had been there many times before and had a good rapport with the shop keeper. When I told her that I wanted this sweet for desert she smiled and asked whether I wanted a camel or chocolate. Desert has a “z” sound and dessert an “s” sound. I haven’t made the mistake since and she often greets me as her “desert” friend. Tough language at times.
I agree with all of the above and would add caoutchouc (rubber). No Latin root there.
la queue ou la letrre q
I shocked a French man visiting the US when I thought I said la queue(waiting in line), but he heard it like a very impolite word, because I had not mastered that sound. He was so shocked! Then he had to explain my error to me, as I had not known the impolite word — not something my French classes taught me.
un oeuf et des oeufs, those come out wrong, too. The f and the s sounds disappear in the plural, leaving me with the vowels that never sound quite right.
I live in the town of Rueil Malmaison. Rueil is a real tongue twister. Sometimes, I take a shortcut and just say “way”.
Hi Kristin,
I am a long time reader and first time poster. Ouf! there are many challenging sounds in French. Certainly the VOWELS are different. Some tricky words pour moi are oiellet, oeil, lui, and oeuvre. And standing in front of a mirror to improve pronunciation (as one prof urged me to do) does not cut it, at least for me!
Thanks to all who gave pronounciation suggestions. Much appreciated.
Brolles-Bois le Roi. I lived in this small town as a young teenager. My family never was able to pronounce it and was very glad to move to Fontainebleau!
mille-feuille, pneu, grenouille, and serrurerie. All of these words, please.
Thanks,
Anne
Kristi, for me, it’s “écureuil”, which is odd because the English word the French have the most difficulty with is “squirrel.”
Hi Kristin!
I think “rue” and “roi” are hard to pronounce. The “Rs” are hardest I think. Try Rendez-vous avec le roi dans la rue du marché des fruits, devant le ruisseau. LOL
Bonjour Kristi!
First of all Felicitation!! to Jacki, I red an article in the Wall Street Journal regarding internships and how much it helps youg students
pursuing their careers and learning from Pros.
French pronunciation is challenging indeed!
For me for example the words like, VERROUILLAGE, COULEVRE,
CRÉPUSCULE, TRUAND, TRUQUER, we have to pout with a relaxation of lips,so we can go on and on with this subject to no end.
I agree with the opinion of Leslie from Oregon.
I bought the book, Pronounce perfectly in French, which helps a lot as well as listening to french tapes/CDs, and try to repeat out loud
over and over. I continue trying to imitate and listen to my french friends . and of course I listen faithfully to Marc and Jacki and repeating after them several times. Merci!!!
Bon dimanche
Réfrigerateur. that one kills me every time
My couple of the top words which I mispronounce are l”art (it is the “r”) and in Provence the village of Lourmarin (the Lour). But I mispronounce many others as well.
I have trouble with feuille.
Grenouille
I’ll vote for Pouilly Fuisse!
Wow! Kristin! Two new publications with your words and a second internship for Jackie! Impressive. So proud of you both!
The city Blois
Louvre or any other word with an ‘r’ at the end (usually followed by an ‘e’?). It seems in some parts of France the ‘r’ is clearly pronounced and in other parts it is just dropped. Some Francophones and some native French speakers have told me there should be at least a hint of the ‘r’ sound to be correct.
Christine has it – Yaourt! My daughter’s hostess wouldn’t let her have any till she pronounced to her satisfaction!
gosh, lots of responses – haven’t waded through them all so sorry if I am repeating. But R words I find tough, eg. recommender – the start of that is a nightmare for me.
For the longest time, fauteuil was my nemesis!
oh boy, where to start… (if I asked my husband though, he’d have more than a basketful to share!) Like many other readers, I’d have to say “rue”…
This might sound silly, but I always have a tough time with ‘Au revoir’ when I try to speak faster. For me, the toughest part is not the individual words, but putting everything together and trying to pronounce everything clearly while speaking at a socially acceptable speed. Ha!
Araignee
I can’t roll the “r” correctly — at all
Rare ou bien rarement! The closed r then wide open ah I never get it right so I always say pas souvent. I agree with serrurerie, chirurgien also difficult! The tr and dr and pr are not easy combinations either. I’ll practice écureuil. What an interesting fact-used as a test word.
There are dozens I can’t correctly pronounce. I remember a poem from French 201: “Ou se trouve le tutu de tulle rouge de Lulu d’Honolulu.” This illustrates the different pronunciations of “u” in French. Maybe one of your famille francaise could do that sentence sometime. And that’s just the beginning! I agree with Julie about Chartres too.
Hands down, for me it’s “kinésithérapeute.” Ouch!
My summer in Arcachon in my youth I stayed with a woman and her daughter Aurore. My French boyfriend made me practice saying
“Arrete de rire Aurore!”
as I had (and still have!) such trouble with the French “R”. We are still in touch and still laugh about my inability to say it right!
Pour moi c’est “accueillir”!!
My toughest: chirurgie, accueil, oreille
I always have trouble with “accueil” and can never remember how to pronounce “oeil ” after all these years of French classes.
French for leaves I always find difficult, not sure how to spell it as no dictionary in bed after day seeing the surgeon yesterday!, difficulty in spelling your name when it contains a U it always ends up being written as an O. I do agree with everyone else’s examples too!!
I have trouble with “droit.” Also, sometimes when I say “accent” people think I’m saying “example.” Guess I need to work on my “ah.”
“Eyes” and “eggs” are tough, “eye” and “egg” are impossible. Also re Mr. Krakauer’s trouble with “Buoux”: I had to ask the tourist office in Apt how to pronounce it, and was told it’s “Bukes” (rhymes with “pukes”).
My favorite challenging word is ronronner (purr).
My French friend couldn’t say Squirrel, and I could say écureuil.
Please, please, give us au dessus and au dessous. Since they mean the opposite, the difference could really matter! As in above or below zero, for instance
The city of Reims! My only consolation is that everyone else I know who is not French seems to have the same trouble with it. I know it’s a combination H and R that gets expelled from your nose and throat simultaneously, but it’s a challenge to actually do it!
This one actually doesn’t exist !
It is “chirurgie” (surgery), still hard to pronounce i guess 🙂
I especially agree that serrurerie is incredibly hard to pronounce. It’s actually fun to read a post from someone who totally agrees! I don’t think I’ll ever be able to pronounce it right.