# FR: syllabification



## Whodunit

timpeac said:
			
		

> Syllabification in French is very regular (ok there are a few funnies, mainly around vowel combinations but almost always you can tell from the spelling). Same for Spanish.
> 
> I have never studied this in English or German, so I can't comment there, but I find it hard to think why you would need syllabification in the dictionary for French or Spanish.


 
Okay, in German, sometimes it's insane and sometimes it's regular.  In English, it's easy for me ... maybe because it's quite regular. In French, I'd like you to sparate "nous mangeons", "vous appelleriez", "quatuor" or "médecin" (separable at all?)


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## elroy

Whodunit said:
			
		

> Okay, in German, sometimes it's insane and sometimes it's regular.  In English, it's easy for me ... maybe because it's quite regular. In French, I'd like you to sparate "nous mangeons", "vous appelleriez", "quatuor" or "médecin" (separable at all?)


 
Most likely:

man-geons
ap-pel-le-riez 
qua-tu-or
mé-de-cin


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## timpeac

Whodunit said:
			
		

> Okay, in German, sometimes it's insane and sometimes it's regular.  In English, it's easy for me ... maybe because it's quite regular. In French, I'd like you to sparate "nous mangeons", "vous appelleriez", "quatuor" or "médecin" (separable at all?)


 I actually had a whole exam having to do this from a taped conversation! I'm a bit rusty but I'll give it a go 

A bit difficult without phonetic symbols, but going for the standard accent (rather than the southern for example where they pronounce the unaccented "e") -

nous man geons
vou za pleh riez
qua tuor (I believe some would pronounce the uo as 2 separate syllables)
met san


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## belén

I am moving part of this conversation to English - French where more people can discuss this particular subject.
Belén


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## Agnès E.

elroy said:
			
		

> Most likely:
> 
> man-geons
> ap-pel-le-riez
> qua-tu-or
> mé-de-cin


Absolutely and rigorously right (in writing), elroy! 



			
				timpeac said:
			
		

> nous man geons
> vou za pleh riez
> qua tuor (I believe some would pronounce the uo as 2 separate syllables)
> met san


I'm not that sure about _vous_ _appelleriez_. I think we would hear _za pey le riez_ instead. And, for _vous_ _appelez_, I think we would hear _za plez_ as you wrote.


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## Whodunit

elroy said:
			
		

> Most likely:
> 
> man-geons
> ap-pel-le-riez
> qua-tu-or
> mé-de-cin


 
This surprises me:

man-geons -> why can't I separate the verb endings like "-ons" as in "nous avions"?
ap-pel-le-riez --> why not separating the last syllable? I thought one pronounces 5 syllables, so ap-pel-le-ri-ez
qua-tu-or -> so you had to separate "huit" as well, since "tuor" is one syllable for me.
mé-de-cin -> I'd pronounce 2 syllables only, so it should be méd(e)-cin

Interesting topic, since I have always problem with those words.


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## Benjy

Whodunit said:
			
		

> This surprises me:
> 
> man-geons -> why can't I separate the verb endings like "-ons" as in "nous avions"?
> ap-pel-le-riez --> why not separating the last syllable? I thought one pronounces 5 syllables, so ap-pel-le-ri-ez
> qua-tu-or -> so you had to separate "huit" as well, since "tuor" is one syllable for me.
> mé-de-cin -> I'd pronounce 2 syllables only, so it should be méd(e)-cin
> 
> Interesting topic, since I have always problem with those words.



huit.. in IPA is the little greek symbole you use for micro- in physics. it looks like a u with the tail? anyhows my point is that its a semi vowel, so its not seperated?


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## Aupick

French syllables naturally fall into a pattern of consonant + vowel wherever possible. (I should say consonant sound + vowel sound: the first syllable of 'man-geons' ends in an 'n', for example, but is still a (nasal) vowel sound, since the 'n' isn't pronounced.) A word like 'généreusement' separates according to this pattern: gé-né-reu-se-ment. These syllables are called open (libres). 

If you have two or more consonants together, one of these closes a syllable, and the other opens the next one: calculer becomes *cal*-cu-ler. Syllables that end in a consonant are called closed (entravées).

However, if the second consonant is an 'r' or an 'l' the preceding consonant opens a new syllable rather than closing that last one: librement becomes li-bre-ment (not lib-re-ment), négliger becomes né-gli-ger. (But verbal becomes ver-bal, because the 'r' precedes the 'b'.)

Most double consonants act as two consonants, as does the single letter 'x' (because it denotes two consonant sounds). So: appelleriez becomes ap-pel-le-riez.

In most cases where 'i' is followed by an 'e', the 'i' is not a separate vowel, but a semi-vowel called a 'yod' (represented by 'j' in the IPA), so 'ie' are not separated into two vowel sounds (thus ap-pel-le-riez, rather than ap-pel-le-ri-ez). 'Rien' is a one syllable word, difficult though it is for non-francophones to pronounce it that way. 'U' and 'ou' often act the same way, if followed by a vowel: lui and oui are both one syllable. Hence qua-tuor.

(And once you know all this, you can usually tell which accent to put on an 'e': *è* is nearly always used for closed syllables (except for certain one-syllable words), whereas *é* is nearly always used for open syllables. (*ê* can be used for either.) Hence those spelling changes in certain -er verbs: je pète, tu pètes, il pète (one closed syllable each), nous pé-tons, vous pé-tez (two open syllables each), ils pètent (one closed syllable).)

Also, syllabification tends to 'pronounce' silent 'e's: mé-de-cin rather than méd(e)-cin, which is why événement has that second acute accent, rather than the grave which is pronounced (é-vé-ne-ment rather than é-vène-ment. (Actually the real reason was to torture French school kids during their _dictées_.)

Now you should probably take two aspirin and go and lie down for a while. Meantime, I'm going to go off and look for a life.


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## Agnès E.

Whodunit said:
			
		

> man-geons -> why can't I separate the verb endings like "-ons" as in "nous avions"?


 Because *geons* is a whole syllable and we may not cut a syllable. By the way, I never saw _avions_ cut the way you say... actually, I never saw it cut.   Same for all short words: either there is enough room for them at the end of a line and they stay here, or there is no room and they fully move to the following line.


> ap-pel-le-riez --> why not separating the last syllable? I thought one pronounces 5 syllables, so ap-pel-le-ri-ez


It is not a question of pronunciation but a question of separating by writing. We never cut a long word just before its last syllable.


> qua-tu-or -> so you had to separate "huit" as well, since "tuor" is one syllable for me.


 No, the same rule applies for _huit_ as for _avions_. By the way, you are right in the sense that _tuor_ has to stay uncut (although it is prounounced tu-or, i.e., 2 syllables, even when speaking fast). 


> mé-de-cin -> I'd pronounce 2 syllables only, so it should be méd(e)-cin


 Same comment as for appelleriez: it is not a question of how you pronounce it but of writing rules.


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## Whodunit

Agnès E. said:
			
		

> Because *geons* is a whole syllable and we may not cut a syllable. By the way, I never saw _avions_ cut the way you say... actually, I never saw it cut.  Same for all short words: either there is enough room for them at the end of a line and they stay here, or there is no room and they fully move to the following line.
> It is not a question of pronunciation but a question of separating by writing. We never cut a long word just before its last syllable.
> No, the same rule applies for _huit_ as for _avions_. By the way, you are right in the sense that _tuor_ has to stay uncut (although it is prounounced tu-or, i.e., 2 syllables, even when speaking fast).
> Same comment as for appelleriez: it is not a question of how you pronounce it but of writing rules.


 
Okay, I know that you should not separate inherently short words, but they were just a pattern. Now that you mentioned that "tuor" has to remain unseparated everything is clear. I hope I can apply Aupick's rule the next time I write a test or composition at home. 

Thank you all for your effort.


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## timpeac

Agnès E. said:
			
		

> Absolutely and rigorously right (in writing), elroy!
> 
> 
> I'm not that sure about _vous_ _appelleriez_. I think we would hear _za pey le riez_ instead. And, for _vous_ _appelez_, I think we would hear _za plez_ as you wrote.


 
Yes - whether you pronounce the unstressed "e"s in French is always the sticking point, and pretty much comes down to what accent you have.

Some people syllabalise French on the basis that you pronounce them all (like Elroy did) since this relates to the written language and then you can bear in mind that many people don't pronounce some or all of them (eg met-san for medehsan).


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## timpeac

Whodunit said:
			
		

> Okay, I know that you should not separate inherently short words, but they were just a pattern. Now that you mentioned that "tuor" has to remain unseparated everything is clear. I hope I can apply Aupick's rule the next time I write a test or composition at home.
> 
> Thank you all for your effort.


 
Along with the unstressed "e"s the vowel combinations are the difficult thing.

You might find this discussion interesting from post 31 onwards.

http://forum.wordreference.com/showthread.php?t=21643&highlight=grenouille+alouette

Hope it helps!


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## BookieNYC

Forgive me if this is not the proper place to ask this (my first post here, je suis vierge ici, plus ou moins).

I am proofreading a cookbook in English by a Frenchwoman, in which the typesetter had to break the word _mouillette_ at the end of a line. Break was done as: _mouil-lette_. This does not look quite right to me, but I cannot find a dictionary that, like trusty old _Webster 11_, shows the breaks.

Aidez-moi, s'il vous plaît? Merci.


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## itka

It is not actually a question of syllabification here. 
The rule is : when there is a double letter in a word, break the word in the middle of these letters. 
So it's perfectly correct to break : _mouil-lette_, but not very smart. It would have been better to manage not to cut the word !


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## BookieNYC

Thank you, itka. I agree it would have been better not to, but it would have made the line very loose, c'est à dire, too much space between words. (I work in the printed word, so this might come up more.)

Can anyone suggest a French dictionary that shows the breaks in words? That would be a big help. Thanks.


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## jann

You might be interested in some of the sites in the Pronunciation/Typography post from the Language thread in our Resources subforum?


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## BookieNYC

Yes, thank you! I'll have a longer look and bookmark some.


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