| 2.6 Liaison |
Liaison occurs when a mute final consonant (s, z, n, t) is connected with the vowel of the following word. If you think about this, you will notice that it only occurs when the preceding word ends in s, z, n or t, and the following word starts with a vowel or a mute h. If the mute final consonant happens to be an s, it is then pronounced in a voiced way, like in crazy.
| Examples | ||
| French | correct and wrong | English |
| un homme |  |
a man |
| tout entier | |
complete(ly) |
| avant hier | |
day before yesterday |
| plus ou moins | |
more or less |
| Comment allez vous? | |
How are you? |
| bien étrange | |
quite strange |
Following some examples for the voiced s between two vowels:
| Examples | ||
| French | correct and wrong | English |
| Vous avez dormi. | |
You have slept. |
| chez elle | |
at her place |
| nous en avons | |
we have of it |
| très utile | |
very useful |
Now we come back to the problem of the unpronounced aspirated h:
A not-aspirated h has the liason, the merger between the consonant and the following vowel. An aspirated h does not have this liason. The words are not connected, but rather remain separated.
| Listen to the examples! | |
| les hommes |
|
| aber | |
| les haches |
|
For comparison both together:
| Attention! | |
| les hommes <=> les haches |
|
If you now ask, how to know the difference, the answer is again in the dictionary. An aspirated h is marked with an apostrophe (').
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