5 French words you probably mispronounce

French is a beautiful language, stunning. But full of mysteries and inexplicable rules. Just like our own language by the way, but that aside. To ensure we don't give our French fellow humans any orteils tordus (crooked toes) this summer, I'll go through the most common pronunciation mistakes with you.

Moët et Chandon

I always hear everyone say something like ‘mowee e sjandon’, but here the ‘t’ is pronounced hard. So it’s MoëT et Chandon. With a hard t. There, now you’ve earned yourself a glass as far as I’m concerned.

Roland Garros

Here too, many Dutch people think they are incredibly French by not pronouncing the ‘s’ very casually, but really: it’s Roland Garrossss, with a strong ‘s’ at the end.

Hermès

I once had a fashion colleague who said ‘hermée’ instead of ‘ermèz’, because that’s how you pronounce it. You can swallow the ‘h’, but that ‘s’ you pronounce so sharply that it almost becomes a ‘z’ from sharpness.

Restaurant

Just like car sounds like ‘oto’ and not like ‘auwto’, you should also pronounce restaurant in the French way. Here you swallow that ‘t’ at the end again. ‘Restauran’ then, even when you are in the Netherlands.

Isabel Marant

Also with Isabel Marant, you leave the ‘t’ as it is. So it’s ‘Isabel Maran’. Maybe t’s at the end of a word in French are negligible, but that doesn’t apply to Moët. So, I couldn’t crack the code. Is there a French doctor in the room?

Image: Reinier RVDA