Pronunciation Tips

In French, what you see isn't necessarily what you hear, because many letters are silent.

Here is a guide through pronunciation tips.

To know whether a final letter should be pronounced or not, think about the Careful rule.

- If the French word ends in C, R, F or L (the letters in CaReFuL), the final letter is pronounced.

- If the word ends with another letter: the final letter is silent.

- This doesn't work if the final letter is "e", "b", "k" or "q" though. Since "b", "k" and "q" are almost never used as final letters in French, this rule works in most cases.

Note: there are exceptions, but with this rule, you will be right in most situations. As for everything, you will end up knowing instinctively how to pronounce words as you get a better knowledge of the language.

Connaitre v/s Savoir

The creators of the French language love nothing more than to make you suffer. That‘s why they decided to create two verbs to say “to know”. And of course, since giving the exact same meaning to both would have made it too easy to learn, they decided to give slight variations of meaning to each verb

Let‘s start with

Connaître:

• Used before nouns, never before verbs

• Often means “to know or to be familiar with a person or place“.

e.g:

Je connais cet homme, c'est mon voisin.

I know this man, he is my neighbour.

Je connais bien Paris.

I am familiar with/ I know Paris well.

Je (ne) connais personne ici

I don’t know anyone here.

Note: dropping the “ne” is common in spoken French

Savoir:

• Used before verbs and prepositions. Almost never used before a noun

• Often means to "know how to“.

e.g :

Je sais manger avec des baguettes

I know how to eat with chopsticks.

Je ne sais pas quoi faire

I don't know what to do.