In writing last month’s article on five-minute fixes, I realised two things:

1. There are plenty more where the first five came from, and

2. Fixing these seemingly small errors can really make a very positive difference in how others perceive your French.

So, let’s get going on another five to further hone your French in a way that is très efficace* !

We breeze right past them in English, yet for some reason we tend to hesitate when faced with an apostrophe in French. Not all of them of course…

For example, very few people skip a beat when they say j’ai*. You likely know that j’ai is a contraction of je (meaning ‘I’) and ai (meaning ‘have’), but I’d bet you don’t pause when you see the apostrophe, do you? You’re so used to saying j’ai that you say it as if it were one word, just as you’ve never dream of making a pitstop at the apostrophe in the English contraction ‘don’t’.

However, with less commonly used words, we find that some students baulk like a showjumper whose horse is afraid of water.

Have you ever had un doute* when it comes to these?:

aujourd’hui (o-zhoor-dwee)
jusqu’à (zhu-skuh)
hors d’œuvre (or-der-vre)
ce qu’il (se-kil)
ce qu’elle (se-kel)

Many have, so ne vous inquiétez pas*. You just need to train yourself to glide right on past the apostrophe, treating it as though it’s just one word. Don’t risk being thrown off, just gather your linguistic reins, squeeze your thighs against your steed and prepare yourself to sail over the word with all the grace and ease of an Olympic champion. Bon courage*!

Things can start to snowball pronunciation-wise when we see both an apostrophe and an ‘h’ right next to one another. Think, for example, of the word j’habite*, which many of our beginners struggle to master.

However, now that you know to completely ignore any apostrophes you see, you’ve managed to get rid of one barrier at least.

Then when I tell you that in French all ‘h’s are silent, just like that, there goes the other one!

By ignoring both the apostrophe and the letter ‘h’, you’ve effectively rendered it a single word that looks like this:

jabite
(pronounced ‘zhuh-beet’)

Pas si difficile* after all, huh?

Other examples to try:

l’homme = lomme
(pronounced ‘lom’)

l’huile = luile
(pronounced ‘lweel’)

je m’habille = je mabille
(pronounced ‘zhe mubee’)

Having tackled the double whammy now, let’s return to simpler times: the letter ‘h’ by itself. Remember, wherever it may crop up, you have permission to ignore it completely. For example:

heureux
(pronounced eu-reu)

histoire
(pronounced iss-twar)

herbe
(pronounced airb)

What can trip us up à nouveau* is when we see an ‘h’ sitting cheek by jowl with a ‘t’, as in the word théâtre*, for example. So used are we to pronouncing ‘th’ the English way, it can seem counterintuitive to pronounce only the ‘t’, but this is exactly what you must do.

théâtre
(pronounced tay-ahtre)

mathématiques
(pronounced mat-ey-mat-eek)

Édith
(pronounced Ey-deet)

By the way, you may take some comfort in the fact that the French generally find formulating the English ‘th’ sound very difficult. We take it for granted, but try consciously making that lisping sound yourself (or indeed explaining to someone how to do it) and you’ll likely appreciate that no matter the language, there will always be challenges. Surely that’s part of the fun?

This one is relatively easy to fix: fille* rhymes with the English word ‘fee’. Alternatively, if pronouncing the word famille* (fum-ee) is second nature to you, then you may prefer to align fille with that word, since they’re from the same family (poor pun most definitely intended).

The fact that fils (the French word for ‘son’) rhymes with ‘police’ works for me, but if you’re looking for something different, try thinking of the French tennis player, Gaël Monfils.

If you can hear the commentator saying ‘mon-feece’, you’ve got the right idea. By the way, have you ever thought that his surname literally means ‘my son’? Moi non plus* until recently, but there you are.

Pronouncing the ‘s’ on the word ans* when saying your age is a classic error and it’s not confined to absolute beginners. Oftentimes, when students first learn to say their age, they’re so focused on saying j’ai and not je suis*, that the ‘s’ on ans just slips out. If it’s not picked up early on, it can become an unconscious habit, but if you’re reading this now and you realise this applies to you, ça suffit*. You can stop now.

We really hope you’ve found these quick fixes of benefit to you. There may well be a fresh crop next month. By the way, if you think of a quick fix that could be included in a future article, please feel free to let us know in the comments.

How to Learn French - Another five-minute fix