[Originally posted on 03/30/14 on the Duolingo French for English speakers forum by LeMaitre]
I found a nice article on the pronunciation of the French ‘y’ (i grec). Most of us may know that it serves both as a vowel and consonant, but I thought that I could just share it.
Article
The letter Y, which is fairly uncommon in French, can be a consonant or a vowel.
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As a vowel, it’s pronounced like the y in happy.
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When Y is at the beginning of a word or syllable, it is a consonant and is pronounced just like the English Y. It is found as a consonant mainly in foreign words, country names, etc.
Here are some examples :
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y (there) [ee]
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cyclisme (biking, cycling) [seekleezmuh]
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yaourt (yogurt) [yéurt]
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yeux (eyes) [yuh]
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sympa (nice) [Now this word is quite debatable, as it’s pronounced quite like sampa]
Source : http://french.about.com/od/pronunciation/a/y.htm
Selected comments on original post
I’ve added this tip to our list of French grammar tips [EDIT: link was not archived on Duolinguists, but individual articles were]. Thank you.
Merci beaucoup 🙂 I’ve bookmarked that page. It must have surely required some effort to make that!
It’s very good and more detailed than mine French tips. How to read French? I will add a link toward yours.
I’ve read your discussion. Mine is just detailed about ‘y’. But you’ve delved into all the vowel and consonant sounds. Awesome!
You could try to make more on other sounds. It’s very useful to do it, even for the person who make it, I revised a lot of things by making it, lol.
d.batta [moderator]
The correct pronunciation of “sympa” is sɛ̃pa. In this case (as in words like “symphonie”, “synchroniser”, etc.) you have the same pronunciation of words like “main”, “fin”, “rien”.
Duolinguists 