How to Pronounce Difficult Words in French: Part 1
Learn how to pronounce the French words that members of the Talk in French community have the most difficulty saying.
One of the most difficult things non-French speakers all agree on when learning French is the pronunciation.
You’ll often hear French learners grumbling about:
- how to pronounce the letter u’s and the r’s,
- how to let the French words roll off the tongue without sounding funny, and
- how to say certain French words that almost seem impossible to pronounce.
In some cases, these words are so difficult to say that you’d probably just have to avoid altogether any scenario that requires you to say the particular word, otherwise you’d go:
We asked the Talk in French community on Facebook to share the French words that they have the most difficulty pronouncing. The response was overwhelming! So here in this article, we’ve listed down the answers you shared.
We have narrowed down the list to 120 words which will be spread out into a series of 4 articles, with 30 words for each article.
Time to learn how to pronounce difficult words in French!
The four pages currently show 110 written entries: 30 each in Parts 1, 2 and 4, and 20 in Part 3. Some entries group related words or forms.
| Accueil | a welcome or reception |
| Aiguille | needle |
| Anticonstitutionnellement | unconstitutionally |
| Août | August, as in the month |
| Apparaîtrions | we would appear (first-person plural conditional of apparaître) |
| Arbre | tree |
| Arrondissement | district |
| Aucun/aucune | none, no, no one, neither (can be used as an adjective or a pronoun) |
| Barbès-Rochechouart | a station in the Paris Metro which is located at the junction of Boulevard Barbès which is named after Armand Barbès (a revolutionary), and Boulevard de Rochechouart (after Marguerite de Rochechouart, the abbess). |
| Barbu | when used as an adjective, it means “bearded”. As a noun, it means a bearded man. |
| Biscuit | a small baked treat: a biscuit in British English or a cookie in American English. A biscuit salé is a savoury biscuit or cracker. |
| Brouillard | fog |
| Brûlé/e | burnt |
| Cacahuète | peanut |
| Cadeau | cadeau is a gift or a present |
| Gâteau | gateau is cake |
| Cahors | Cahors is a town in South Western France that is famous for its wine. |
| Caoutchouc | Rubber |
| Chatouille | Tickle |
| Chaussures | Shoes |
| Chirurgie, Chirurgien(ne) | Surgery, surgeon |
| Citrouille | Pumpkin |
| Cœur | Heart |
| Cou vs cul | Cou is neck while cul means ass or bum |
| Couverture | Blanket |
| Croissant | crescent; the crescent-shaped pastry |
| Cueillie | picked or plucked |
| de rien | you’re welcome; it’s nothing |
| de, le, un | articles and prepositions. de= of/from, le=the, and un=a |
| Débrouiller | a verb that means to sort out or untangle something; se débrouiller means to manage or get by |
Did your submitted word make it to this list? There are still parts 2, 3, and 4 of difficult words to pronounce. Don’t forget to check them out, too.
If you want to learn more about French language and culture, don’t forget to look for Talk in French in social media: Facebook or Twitter.
See you there!
