43 Comments
probably her accent. but honestly, I would understand 'ey-teel' as well as 'eh-teel'. I tend to say 'ey' for 'est' and 'eh' for 'et' anyway. Maybe that's wrong. shrug I'm a descriptivist, and I'm a foreign speaker, it's not gonna be perfect.
When a consonant sound that would normally not be pronounced---" est" comes before a vowel, the final consonant IS pronounced.
The final s or t is pronounced when in front of a vowel or silent h. Although the s seems to be exaggerated here (incorrectly). In French they like things to sound good, so sometimes they will throw in a t if there isn't one just to make it sound nice, as in : comment va-t-il ?
yes, well i thought only T should have been pronounced here, like in "Quelle heure est-il?"
You are correct. The "s" is always silent when the meaning of "est" is "is." Both the "s" and the "t" are pronounced, when "est" means "east."
Yes I am so sorry I meant s or t. Not both. I regret my error. I have corrected it. I hope no confusion. I read your question completely wrong. Je suis tres, tres desolee.
as an aside, especially in French Canada, sometimes /t/ that comes close to a front vowel like /i/ takes on a sort of a [ts] sound, so for example "petit" can sound more like "petsee". I don't think this is as strong in European French but I think it does still happen very subtly (I'm open to correction on that). So you might be hearing a bit of that in the "t" that is pronounced because of the following "il". (sounding just a tiny bit like "eh - tsil"
It's called a liaison and it happens when a consonant is pronounced at the end of the word when followed by a vowel. For example: c'est affreux is pronounced set-afruh (sort of - sorry for that horrible phonetic translation!)
Even after 4 years it has not been corrected. That is very disheartening. Is anyone out there listening? This isn't the only grossly wrong pronunciation. (Did you note forte pronounced as for-tay?)
What's the difference in pronunciation of ugly (laid) and milk(lait)? Or is it contextual?
the pronunciation is exactly the same for "laid" and "lait".
but since "lait" is a noun and "laid" an adjective, the sentence would tell which is which:
- it is milk = c'est du lait
- he is ugly = il est laid
If the answer is anywhere between "yes" and "somewhat", the next question is "est-il riche ?"
I know duolingo pronunciation isn't perfect, but it sounds like the recording for this one says, "Eh-til loo lay?" Google translate doesn't have the "loo" sound, which is in line with how I thought it would be pronounced. Like, "Eh-til lay?"
Could anyone weigh in on this? Thanks!
The man says "Et-il" and the woman "Est-il". Which is right? The man sounds better to me
I think a better example could be found. I don't think I would want my kids to learn how to speak in this manner.
Well, he might be, but at least he writes French better than you pronounce it, Computer Woman.
That's perhaps because "est" also means "east," and when it has that meaning all three letters are pronounced.
