TDudette

In high school French, we were taught to say Ays en Provence. Now I'm told it's X. What is correct! TD

Sherbrooke

Aix rhymes with makes.

Travelnut

I thought it was 'eggs'

ExplorerB

TD,

In Provence last summer, I heard it pronounced "Ex." I hope these utterances weren't limited to ill-informed tourists.

traveller1959

The correct pronunciation is "ex" - it comes from Aquae Sextiae Salluviorum, therefore the "x" which is clearly pronunciated (and has always been).

Luisah

In the week I spent in Aix I heard "Ex" from everyone, never anything sounding like "Ays" or "aches."

StCirq

Your high school teachers were incorrect.

hausfrau

"X" like the letter. Not "ays," "aches" or "eggs." I know it doesn't make sense as a French word, but it's NOT a French word. It took me a while to get over that.

hanl

Agree it's pronounced "ex".

But just to confuse things, note that Auxerre is pronounced "osserre" and "Bruxelles" is "brusselle"

StCirq

Agree about Auxerre, but hanl, aren't there two acceptable pronounciations of Bruxelles (the other one being - and this is an approximation - Bruck-sell)?

TimS

This reminds me of a note in a guidebook which said that Cannes is pronounced "Kahn" like the actress Madeline Kahn. So when I was at the train station in Nice I dutifully pronounced it that way. The response from the person at the ticket window was, "Do you mean 'can'?"

hanl

"aren't there two acceptable pronounciations of Bruxelles (the other one being - and this is an approximation - Bruck-sell?"

StCirq, I've noticed that people in France tend to pronounce it "Bruck-sell" (which is what I called it in French before I moved here), while all the locals here say "Brussell".

I was "told off" by a local for pronouncing it the French way not long after I arrived!

weindell

A native French speaker told me to pronounce it "eggs."

And as for Cannes, I found that unless I pronounced that second syllable, i.e., "Can-nuh," no one understood me. In fact, in my travels in France, I've always found that things that my high school French teacher taught me were silent are usually not completely silent in France. Not enunciated enough to qualify as a whole extra syllable, maybe, but certainly pronounced. So, when I asked a hotel desk clerk in Provence about directions to Beaune (which I pronounced "Bone,&quot she looked puzzled at first and then she said, "Oh, you mean 'Beau-nuh.'" Same thing on a previous trip when I asked someone for directions to Arles. Had to get that "uh" in at the end.

TDudette

So traveller1959, that is Latin? What does it mean? Ex sounds soooo unFrench, eh??
Thanks all, TD

Gretchen

The Provence examples could be the dialect--which they can do with what they want, of course.
Another vote for X.

kerouac

It is indeed Ex. There are other X's as well, such as Aix-les-Bains or even the German city of Aachen = Aix-la-Chapelle. In every case, it is pronounced Ex.

cigalechanta

X or ex..
I never heard Arles pronounced with that ending.

kerouac

<i>StCirq, I've noticed that people in France tend to pronounce it &quot;Bruck-sell&quot; (which is what I called it in French before I moved here), while all the locals here say &quot;Brussell&quot;.</i>

Not in the east of France.

Bruxelles = BRU-ssel
Metz = Mess
Auxerre = Oh-sserr

kerouac

Weindell, you were talking to people from the south of France. They add an extra syllable to everything.

Underhill

That they do, and quite a few words are pronounced as in old Proven&ccedil;al.