Bonjour à tous !
Time for another video in easy French. This time I am taking your to l’Abbaye de Beauport in my hometown of Paimpol, Brittany.
How to Pronounce Abbaye in French
Click on the link next to the headphone to hear my recording.
- Abbaye = a bé i
The “y” acts like 2 i’s. The first one pairs with the secon a of Abbaye to make a sound “é” and then there is one “i” left !
Wait a minute? Isn’t “ai” in French pronounced like an open “è” sound? Yes, it should. Now, it’s a sound that is being butchered a lot by the French: lazy mouth habits, we don’t open our mouth as much as we should and then the è sounds like an é…
Try to say “a bè i”… it’s quite a mouthful! So I think that this word probably switched pronunciation naturally to accommodate how people were saying it: “a bé i” (just a theory of mine though…)
Watch out – a French “i” sounds like “ee” in English. It’s a long sound!
You also need to be careful about your liaisons and elisions in front of this word which starts with a consonant:
Une N-abbaye
L’abbaye
Des Z-abbayes
Spend a week in the beautiful harbour town of Paimpol on the North Coast of France.
- longer – to walk along something
- la côte – the coastline
- le chemin – the path
- mener – to lead
- être refait – to be redone
- la marée haute/ basse – high / low tide
- y – this letter is called “i grec” in French (Greek i)
- dater du – to date back to
- être en ruine – to be in ruins, barely standing
- ça fait rêver – it makes you dream
- N’est-ce pas ? – right? Doesn’t it?
- Un puits – a well – note this “puits” ends in a silent “ts” and has the same plural form
- Une glycine – wisteria
Abbaye de Beauport Easy French Video
You may turn the French/English subtitles on/off with the options located on the bottom right of the Youtube screen.
Comments