French diction for singers: nasal vowels, mute e, liaison and the French r

The pronunciation of a French word varies depending on the words that precede or follow it⁴. This page covers nasal vowels, the mute e, the r, silent final consonants and liaison, as one of the guides in the diction section.

Vowels: oral and nasal

Standard French contrasts up to 13 oral vowels and up to 4 nasal vowels¹. Most French syllables are open and end in a vowel³.

Oral vowels

Nasal vowels

Nasal vowels

The phonetic qualities of the back nasal vowels differ from those of the corresponding oral vowels¹. The front pair is less stable: some speakers merge [œ̃] with [ɛ̃], especially in the northern half of France¹.

Spelling points to the nasal. A vowel before a single final n is nasal, so pain and vin carry the [ɛ̃] vowel³. That vowel is spelled aim, ain, eim, ein, im, in, ym and yn³. The nasal in enfant, Caen and paon is spelled an, am, en, em, aen and aon³, and the nasal in son and nom is spelled on or om³. When the nasal consonant is doubled, the vowel is oral: une and Anne have an oral vowel, and so do année and ami³.

The mute e

The mute e is the schwa, and the letter e writes it³. The schwa is not necessarily a distinctive sound in French¹. When it is sounded, it often merges with one of the mid front rounded vowels¹, and the French vowel transcribed as schwa is closer to [ø]⁷. Schwa is written e with three exceptions: monsieur, faisant and the forms of faire³. The letter e can also be pronounced [e] or [ɛ] depending on context³.

Whether the mute e sounds is a matter of register and speed. The higher the register, the more schwas are kept, and the faster the speech, the more are dropped³. A schwa is kept to avoid a double consonant³. The mute e can be forbidden, obligatory or optional depending on context³.

Elision is the omission of a final, unstressed -e in a word followed by a word beginning with a vowel or a mute h². Elision is common both in lyric diction and in everyday speech².

The French r

The most common French r is the voiced uvular fricative, written [ʁ]¹. Singing treats it separately: traditionally operatic singers avoided it because of its effect on vowel production, while some modern French lyric singers use it in art song and opera⁹. In speech it has a voiceless positional allophone, written [χ], in the positions before or after a voiceless obstruent or at the end of a sentence¹. The alveolar trill [r] and the alveolar tap [ɾ] are considered dialectal realisations¹.

Consonants

Spelling guides the other consonants. The k sound is spelled k, ck, c, cc or ch; the sh sound is spelled ch, sch or sh; the soft j sound is spelled j, or g before i, y or e³. The palatal nasal is spelled gn³. A double letter stands for one phonetic symbol³. The palatal lateral of some dialects has merged with the glide j in standard French¹. Word-final [k] may be palatalised¹, and a word spoken with emphatic stress can geminate its first syllable-initial consonant¹.

Many words with silent final consonants have lost them entirely: neither the n in million nor the t in art is ever pronounced⁵. A final consonant that is always pronounced links to the initial vowel of the next word³. Between a verb and the pronoun that follows it, liaison is obligatory: vient-elle, comprend-il³.

Liaison

Liaison is a sandhi process in which word-final consonants are not pronounced unless they are followed by a word beginning with a vowel¹. Most liaison arises from a mute word-final consonant that used to be pronounced⁵. Silent final consonants may be pronounced in some syntactic contexts when the following word begins with a vowel or non-aspirated h⁵.

The result of liaison is a regular alternation of consonant and vowel sounds⁴. In des amis, liaison links the two words with the sound [z]⁴. Liaison is a phonological process by which an initial vowel brings out a normally silent final consonant³. It is also subject to wide stylistic variation⁵, and it is primarily active in high-frequency word pairs⁵.

Obligatory, forbidden and optional

There are 3 types of liaison³. Obligatory liaisons occur inside a grammatical group, forbidden liaisons are never made, and optional liaisons depend on register³.

Optional liaison signals formal register⁵.

When not to link

A liaison should not be made just because a word ends in a silent consonant and the next one starts with a vowel⁵. Complete knowledge of all the types of liaison is essential to singing French text correctly². Native speakers often do not know the rules of liaison².

Sung versus spoken

Poetry, whether said or sung, takes every liaison except the impossible ones⁵, so verse and song settings call for the optional links as well as the obligatory ones⁵. The h has its own rule: a mute h behaves like a vowel for liaison, and the French h is never pronounced as in English².

Common mistakes for English speakers

• Nasal vowel built from an oral vowel plus n. The nasal vowels differ in quality from their oral partners¹.
• An English h. French never pronounces the h as English does².
• Linking everything. Silent final consonant plus vowel is not enough reason for liaison⁵.
• Skipping an obligatory liaison. A verb and the pronoun after it link: vient-elle, comprend-il³.
• Pronouncing every final consonant. Neither the n in million nor the t in art is ever pronounced⁵.
• Schwa as English “uh”. The French vowel is closer to [ø]⁷.
• An American r. The standard r is uvular [ʁ]; trill and tap are dialectal in speech¹. Operatic tradition avoided the uvular r in singing, and modern French singers have recorded both a uvular approximant and a uvular trill in Fauré songs⁹.
• Treating each word alone. French pronunciation varies with the words before and after⁴.

Next steps

Read the symbols in IPA for singers, then compare with the rules in Italian diction. For the verse behind the songs, Understanding French Verse is aimed at singers and singing teachers interested in the French song repertoire⁸. It uses examples from well known song settings to set out the basics of French versification⁸. For scores, work through Manon or Werther. The course handout and the LAITS liaison page cover the liaison rules above^3,4.