French Steps - Pronunciation - The final '-s'

Pronouncing final '-s'

In French, you will often come across letters that aren't pronounced at all. One of these is s, which you will find at the end of some place names:

Paris Calais Cannes

You'll also find this in plurals. The plural of most French nouns therefore sounds identical to the singular:

le taxi le musée la rue la gare

les taxis les musées les rues les gares

The s is also silent at the end of the definite article les, which rhymes roughly with English 'day'.

If the word after les starts with a vowel or h, then les and the noun are joined with a z sound:

les hôtels les hommes

This feature of French pronunciation is called liaison.