Help, please, how do you say Bayeux?

These threads are always funny as people muddle with accents.

I would pronounce a bayou in Louisiana as a buy you and pronounce bayeux as bayeux.

It is pronounced like "buy"+"yuh".

The first syllable is pronounced like the English word "buy" and the second syllable is pronounced like the vowel sound in the word "book." The two syllables have approximately equal stress.

It rhymes with these common words in French:

deux (two), also dieu (god) or adieu (goodbye)
eu (past tense of have) or eux (them)
feu (fire), also feux (fires)
jeu (game) or jeux (games)
peut or peux (the verb "can", 3rd or 2nd person)
queue (tail), as in what a shrimp or lobster has, among other meanings
veut or veux (the verb "want", 3rd or 2nd person)
and finally...
yeux (eyes)

...not an exhaustive list, by any means.

deux and dieu are not, of course, pronounced alike, though the terminal vowel sound is the same (dieu is essentially the same as d'yeux).

And if you think back to the line in the song "So long, farewell" (in the Sound of Music) when Lisel (I think) sings "adieu, adieu, to yeu and yeu and yeu-euh" - - that is the best audio example I can think of to tell you how it sounds (and this example is not original with me, by the way).

Best wishes,

Rex

Thanks all for your wonderful help. And Rex, I have always thought that part in the Sound of Music was funny. Your illustration makes it very clear. Gonna have to rent that movie again. You all are great...Have a good night.

Rex,

The Sound of Music reference is the first thing that came to my mind. It's perfect.

The first syllable is not as in buy, but as in ba (ba ba black sheep) or bah (bah humbug), the second syllable involves a sound that doesn't exist in English: the diphtong a-y-eux slides into an umlaut sound like the German o with the two dots on it. If you remember the French word for eyes, yeux, then stick Ba in front and you got it. Or think of the sound of ea in learn but close your lips and push it out front, that's the sound.

The x at the end is silent.

WK

So much confusion! The correct pronunciation in the IPA is /bajø/. The second vowel is a rounded mid-upper front vowel, the same vowel that a Californian uses in rain, except that the lips are rounded.

Incidentally, eu, the past participle of avoir in French, does not rhyme with deux or feu; it rhymes with du. The second vowel sound in Bayeux is not the vowel heard in English book; it's not even close.

http://www.naturalvoices.att.com/demos/index.html
Select a language and write Bayeux and although "Alain" says it quickly it is accurate.

I apologize in advance for thread highjacking, but..

My LW tells me that our words 'tin' and 'ten' are pronounced differently.

I tell that I never heard them pronounced differently.

That's interesting about "eu" - - I pronounce it as you suggest (I guess because I have subconsciously adopted what I have heard other French speakers say), and I actually thought that I was probably wrong in pronouncing like a rhyme for "du" or "tu".

It seems harsh to say that the vowel sound in "book" or "look" or "good" or "would" is not even close to the vowel sound of deux/feux/peux/veux/yeux. It is "close" - - to many american ears, and it's sure a lot closer than saying "bah-yoo" or "bah-yoe".

If you have never heard (or made the connection) that "eux" sounds the same as (or similar to) German "oe" (or ö) or Swedish/Danish ø - - then I'm not sure how many (American) English speakers (or from any other country for that matter)... are helped by these additional "other-language" tips.

"The second vowel sound in Bayeux is not the vowel heard in English book; it's not even close."

The vowel in "book" is a near close, near back, rounded vowel; that's certainly closer to the close, front, rounded vowel in the second syllable of "Bayeux" than the vowel I think most English speakers would take to be indicated in "yuh" - an open-mid, back, unrounded vowel (as in "huh").

Thanks, Rex - we were posting at the same time. In my last post, I meant "close-mid," not "close" for the vowel in "Bayeux."

English “Yuh” is usually pronounced with a central or hesitation vowel, a/k/a schwa, which is closer to the correct pronunciation than the vowel in book.

There is a tendency for English speakers who have not studied French to pronounce just about every unfamiliar written vowel or vowel combination they encounter in the most exotic way they can manage (however incorrect it might be), perhaps because the French /y/ vowel tends to stick in their minds. Most French vowels aren't that exotic, however.

One more comment... to Doble...

This American tendency - - pin sounds the same as pen, or marry sounds the same as merry - - is a distinction between "our everyday speech" (at least here in the midwest/mid-South) and "our best enunciated speech".

Pin and pen are clearly not the same vowel sound, if you make the effort to make the distinction.

Start with...

bit and bet
pit and pet
sit and set
wit and wet

- - easy to hear the difference. Now, keep those same vowel sounds, as you had an "n" to make...

hint, lint, mint, tint

bent, dent, rent, sent, tent, went

Likewise, with a "d"...

pinned, sinned, wind

versus

bend, fend, lend, mend, send or tend

For a very few select examples, Americans do tend to make this distinction.

Listen to the announcer say "The Tonight Show with Jay Leno"...

it does not rhyome with "minnow".

But that doesn't mean... that anyone who sez...

"k'nye barra yore pin?" is speaking an "inferior dialect" of "standard (American) English" - - nor that anyone (around here, at least) will have trouble understanding them!

Tin and ten are pronounced completely differently. And so are Mary, marry and merry. If you are pronouncing them all the same - that is the result of some sort of regional accent - not standard American english.

(And I may be called a snob - but this does matter. There are in fact people from some parts of the country - to remain unnamed - that I simply can;t understand at all. I recently had to insist on email vs a phone conversation in a business setting - since the person's accent was so strong - and some of her expressions were so arcane - that none of us - 3 were listening - could actually figure out what she was saying. And unfortunately, this tends to only support the prejudice that people that speak this way are stupid - they may not be - but if they can't make themselves understood - they may as well be.)

If you listen to the news anchors on any of the major national networks you will generally hear the correct pronunciation. Try for that if you wish to speak properly. (There's nothing wrong with retaining some regional accent - but when others can;t understand you - it's time to soften it.)

I take it by "yuh" you're referring to the informal unstressed pronunciation of "you," sometimes written as "ya" (as in "Howya doin'?" or "Whaddya know?"). I agree that's a schwa. I had thought you meant the vowel sound of "huh," "duh," "young," etc., which is farther removed from the correct pronunciation.

But schwa in standard English is never stressed; and so an English speaker told to say something like "buy-ya" (as in "I'll buy ya a beer") would produce a pronunciation more like "baille" (in contexts where it's pronounced as two syllables) than "Bayeux."

Well, thought we had this all settled until we watched the Rick Steves DVD on France last night. He says it like Bay - O, rhymes with the song Deo by Harry Belifonte. Is he way off?

Rick Steves is THE LAST person to rely on for pronounciation of any European language. His language skills are horrible. Yes, he's way off. Way, way off.