One baffling sound for students of the French language to pronounce is the “gn” sound. This sound corresponds to the ñ (enye) in Spanish. When lots of students see these letters in French they’re tempted to say something like ‘gnuh’ as in I’m ‘gunna’ go. However, that’s not the right way to pronounce these letters.
My friend Alexa over at learnfrenchwithalexa.com has a wonder technique for pronouncing this sound correctly. She suggests to pronounce it like the English “knee”. Then, she goes on to give the example of onion, or “oignon” in French.
Speed up your learning with an app
Many of our students have greatly enhanced their learning by using an app. On these pages we've examined the top-30 apps for learning French. On this pages we've written comprehensive reviews for Pimsleur (great for people struggling with pronunciation), Rosetta Stone and FrenchPod101 (both great for visual learners).
Alexa goes on to offer lots of great examples of words with the gn sound including la montagne (mountain), le rossignol (the nightingale), le champignon (the mushroom), mignon (cute), le compagnon (companion), l’araignée (spider), l’agneau (lamb), le peigne (the comb), la baignoire (the bathtub) and many more.
Listen and repeat until you’ve mastered the sound! Bonne chance! 🙂
If you've found this post useful you might want to considering looking at our post covering the best apps for learning French. We've looked a total 33 apps and have written comprehensive reviews of Rosetta Stone, Pimsleur and FrenchPod101.
- Vouloir Conjugation: Complete Charts To Conjugate “To Want” - May 27, 2022
- 10 Most Famous French Actors Of All Time - May 25, 2022
- 7 Ways To Say What In French + Example Sentences - May 24, 2022
Bonjour! My name is David Issokson. I'm based in Victor, Idaho (near Jackson, Wyoming) and have helped hundreds of students to learn French online since 2013.
