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- "Nous avons un chien."
91 Comments
1271
There is no "n" pronounced in this French word. The /a/ vowel is nasalised, instead. The sound is like the vowel in "man" and not the vowel in "top". There is a "y" sound (/j/) at the start of the vowel. Trying to write spellings without IPA is always open to misunderstanding, so we might mean exactly the same thing.
Sorry, I do not agree. In general liaison is not done after a verb or a noun.
The Z liaison after "avons" is optional, but welcome.
https://www.lawlessfrench.com/pronunciation/optional-liaisons/
Try them side by side on forvo.com, you will hear that "chien" ends with a nasal sound where the final N is not heard, whereas chienne would rather be "shee-enn"
The pronunciation of "chien" is really different from that of "chienne". Please check on Google translate or forvo.com
Certain endings typically indicate the gender. There's a simplified as well as an elaborated list on this webpage that can help you with the same: https://frenchtogether.com/french-nouns-gender/#A_simplified_list_of_endings
https://frenchtogether.com/french-nouns-gender/#Guess_the_gender_based_on_the_word8217s_ending
Of course, there are exceptions. But that's the case with any language.
Neither.
The French "oo" is the one you have in "loo" but very short.
The liaison (from nous to avons) is a Z sound.
The French sound "on" is a nasal sound, which does not exist in English (Am or Br).
Please listen to the 4 real French voices here: https://forvo.com/word/nous_avons/#fr
1271
Some verbs, like "have" are things that happen for a while (be, hope, know) - they don't just happen and then stop. These are called "stative verbs".
We don't use stative verbs so much in the "are ____ing" form. Compare how natural these sound:
We are happy vs. we are being happy
We know that vs. we are knowing that
The "are having" form is used for meals, though, so "we are having a dog" could be the answer to the question "What's the roast tonight?" It's unlikely to be the answer to the question "What pets do you have?"
Hope that helps!