Liaisons

They're only dangerous if you don't understand them

“French is the most beautiful language in the world."

A lot of people believe this, but why? I think it comes down to two primary factors: rhythm and liaisons.

Whether or not you speak French, if you close your eyes and listen, you'll notice that it has a sort of sing-song quality. 🎶 Unlike many languages, including English, Spanish, and Greek, individual French words do not have one syllable that is emphasized over the others - each syllable has the same word stress. This is a key part of its rhythm, and it's one of the main factors that contribute to the beauty of French.

The other factor is liaisons, which is what we are taking an in-depth look at in today's issue of Lawless French à fond.

Table of Contents

1. Lessons

2. Listening

3. Quiz Time

4. Juste pour rigoler

5. Remerciements

Lessons

🤔 What are liaisons?

Introduction to French's liaisons, one of the aspects of French pronunciation that can make it difficult to determine where one word ends and the next begins.*

There are 3️⃣ types of liaisons:

1. Required liaisons

2. Optional liaisons

3. Forbidden liaisons

* The other main one is enchaînement, and there are additional euphonic techniques.

⚖️ While required and forbidden liaisons are fairly straightforward, the question of optional liaisons is more complicated. Why are they optional? What kind of difference does it make when you choose to pronounce them vs when you choose not to? The answer to those questions has to do with register.

(There's a second pronunciation phenomenon that has the same required/optional/forbidden aspects, though not always for the same reasons: E instable.)

Listening

Le porte-monnaie A1

In this no-frills but useful exercise, children pronounce a series of numbers followed by centimes (and therefore without a liaison or enchaînement), then by euros (with a liaison or enchaînement).

• Part 1: 1 - 40

• Part 2: 41 - 99

Liaison et élision A2

Podcast in relatively slow French discussing liaisons and élisions (contractions).

Le mot : des liaisons dangereuses B2

Lexicologist Jean Pruvost chats about liaisons. Note that the changing sounds he mentions (e.g, -d to -t) are spelled out in my intro to liaisons.

🙋 A1 -A2 - B2 ?

These are 3 of the 6 CEFR proficiency levels.

Quiz Time

Liaison obligatoire / Liaison interdit

Decide whether each liaison is required or forbidden, then listen to the sound file.

Liaison obligatoire ou interdite ?

Here's a similar quiz that you can print:

🖨️ PDF: Exercise only | Exercise with answer key

Juste pour rigoler

Comic courtesy of Malachi Ray Rempen, ItchyFeetComic.com

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💗 Remerciements

Thanks for reading Lawless French à fond - see you again soon!

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