A2 · Connected speech
French liaison
Liaison is the moment a letter you were told to ignore comes back, because the next word starts with a vowel. les + amis is not “lay ami”. It is “lez-ami”. Skip a required liaison and the sentence falls apart. Force one where French forbids it and you sound like a drill.
A bridge, not a new word
The extra consonant belongs to the start of the next word in the ear: les_amis, vous_avez, un_enfant, petit_ami. s and x in liaison usually sound like z. d sounds like t (grand_ami). f in a few words sounds like v (neuf ans).
You will say these every week
les amis
lez-ami — required after the plural article vous avez
vouz-avez — required after pronoun + verb un enfant
un-n-enfant — required after un / une patterns très utile
trez-utile — after a short adverb like très, trop, bien
Required, forbidden, optional
A working map
| Kind | Where | Example |
|---|---|---|
| Required | Determiner + noun; pronoun + verb; short adverb + adjective | les_enfants, ils_ont, très_heureux |
| Forbidden | After et; before h aspiré; after a singular noun in many cases | et / on (never “et-t-on”); les hiboux |
| Optional | After plural nouns; after some verbs; more “careful” speech | des soldats_anglais — you can, you need not |
When in doubt on optional ones, skip them in conversation. Required ones are not optional. et never takes liaison.
Do it
les_hommes
h muet — treat homme like a vowel
aux_États-Unis
required after aux
comment_allez-vous ?
after comment in this set phrase
Do not
et ils
no t. et is a wall.
le hibou
h aspiré — no l’hibou
petit (end of sentence)
no partner, no liaison
Don’t hunt liaisons on the page
You cannot see which liaisons are required by staring at spelling. You hear them in chunks: les_amis, vous_êtes, deux_heures. Learn those chunks the way you learned la table. A tutor will stop you on the ones that change the grammar (plural, inversion, un vs une), not on every optional flourish.
Try this out loud
Make the bridge. Then stop. Don’t add extra letters.
Les enfants sont ici.
lez-enfants — required
Vous avez un ami.
vouz-avez, un-n-ami
C’est un petit enfant.
petit_enfant — t comes back
Et ils arrivent.
No liaison after et.
Questions this page usually raises
Keep going
Next pronunciation pages — same English, next sound.
A1 · Spelling
French silent letters
Which final consonants you skip, which you keep, and why written French looks longer than spoken French.
Read this resourceA1 · Vowels
French nasal vowels
How an, in, on, and un work in French — air through the nose, no extra n at the end, and the spellings that map to each sound.
Read this resourceA1 · Consonants
The French r
How the French r is made (not an English r, not a Spanish roll), and how to practise it without straining your throat.
Read this resource
If you want a lesson around this
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