Where does a French word end
Elle arrive à une heure is five written words. Spoken, it is one unbroken chain: ɛ-la-ʁi-va-y-nœʁ. You cannot hear a single word beginning.
Two mechanisms create the French rhythm: enchaînement, where the syllable runs on across the word boundary, and the groupe rythmique, where the stress does not sit on the word but at the end of the whole group.
Four chains to listen to
Elle arrive à une heure.
[ɛ·la·ʁi·va·y·nœʁ]
She arrives at one o'clock.
Quelle heure est-il ?
[kɛ·lœ·ʁɛ·til]
What time is it?
Four written words, four spoken syllables, no boundary anywhere.
Je pars avec elle.
[ʒə·pa·ʁa·vɛ·kɛl]
I'm leaving with her.
Il a eu de la chance.
[i·la·y·də·la·ʃɑ̃s]
He was lucky.
Two vowels meet without a restart.
The groupe rythmique
A French sentence does not fall into words but into sense groups: the subject with its extras, the verb with its complements, a time phrase. Each group is spoken as one piece and carries exactly one stress.
The same group, growing
C'est un chat.
[1 group, stress on chat]
It's a cat.
C'est un petit chat noir.
[1 group, stress on noir]
It's a little black cat.
C'est un petit chat noir | qui dort dans le jardin.
[2 groups, 2 stresses]
It's a little black cat sleeping in the garden.
Where a group ends depends on sentence structure and speed. Typical boundaries fall after a subject noun, before a preposition and before a subordinate clause. A short sentence like Je voudrais un café is a single group.
Sentences cut into groups
Je voudrais un café.
[1 group]
I'd like a coffee.
Mon frère | habite à Lyon.
[2 groups]
My brother lives in Lyon.
Les étudiants de ma classe | sont arrivés | en retard.
[3 groups]
The students in my class arrived late.
Quand il fait beau, | nous mangeons | dans le jardin.
[3 groups]
When the weather is nice, we eat in the garden.
What English trains you to do wrong
English stresses words, and the stress is fixed inside each word: RES-taurant, a-PART-ment. French has no word stress: restaurant gets its stress only when the group ends. English speakers also tend to restart the voice before a vowel-initial word, a small glottal stop ʔ like the catch in uh-oh. That is the opposite of enchaînement.
Rhythm side by side
English
Stress
fixed inside the word
Unstressed
reduced to schwa
Timing
stress-timed, uneven beats
Example
the restaurant
French
Stress
at the end of the sense group
Unstressed
keeps its full vowel
Timing
syllable-timed, even beats
Example
le restaurant
Wrong and right
un restaurant italien
[two beats in the middle of the words]
what it sounds like with English word stress
un restaurant italien
[one stress, at the end of the group]
an Italian restaurant
ʔElle ʔest ʔà Paris.
[every word restarted]
what it sounds like with glottal stops
Elle est à Paris.
[ɛ·lɛ·ta·pa·ʁi]
She's in Paris.
The e caduc drops out
The e caduc is the short, unstressed e in petit, samedi, je, ne, le. It can be pronounced or dropped, depending on how many consonants stand around it.
When it falls and when it stays
| Written | Spoken | Reason |
|---|---|---|
| samedi | sam·di | only m + d, the e drops |
| la petite fille | la p·tit fij | only p + t, the e drops |
| vendredi | vɑ̃·dʁə·di | d + ʁ + d would make three, the e stays |
| appartement | a·paʁ·tə·mɑ̃ | ʁ + t + m would make three, the e stays |
| je ne sais pas | ʃɛ pa | in casual speech both e's drop |
In everyday speech the drop mostly hits the small function words. It affects only the sound: in writing it stays je ne sais pas. When reading aloud or speaking carefully, you pronounce more of the e caducs.
Written and as actually spoken
Je ne sais pas.
[ʒə·nə·sɛ·pa]
I don't know. (careful speech)
J'sais pas.
[ʃɛ·pa]
I don't know. (casual speech)
Il n'y a pas de pain.
[il·nja·pa·də·pɛ̃]
There's no bread. (careful speech)
Y a pas d'pain.
[ja·pa·dpɛ̃]
There's no bread. (casual speech)
