Seems St Tropez is pronounced St Tro-pay

and, on the Tour de France, Rodez was pronounced Rod-es - not a long e sound like in Saint-Tropez

Asked my French raised son about that and he said he did not know why there was a difference

Q - is there a rule of thumb for dumb foreigners on how to pronounce the final 'ez' in a word or town?

I always thought it were more like Saint-Tropez - trop-pay

Or is it possibly due to regional dialects from long-gone regional tongues, having read that as recently as a few hundreds years ago very few people living in today's Hexagon spoke French.

Any insights and other examples and how the are pronounced.

Merci bien.

There is no rule and no logic. The French are just as likely to misprononce unfamiliar French place names as anybody else.

My son just said 'you're thinking too hard, you're dealing with France'.

There are certain rules that apply to French place names of Celtic origin, but that's not the case with St-Tropez and Rodez. It's just random. My best French friend called me a few days ago to say that she had visited Le Bugue for the first time. She used a soft "g" when pronouncing it. It's a hard "g."

wikipedia knows everything:

L'origine du nom de Rodez remonte à l'Antiquité, sous l'occupation romaine. La cité était alors nommée Segodunum (La colline de seigle) en raison de son édification au sommet d'un piton. Au Bas-Empire, la ville sera baptisée la Civitas Rutenorum, la ville des Rutènes. Puis, elle devint Ruteni et finalement Rodez.

Rodez se prononce Rodèze, mais la plupart des aveyronnais, de par leur accent, prononcent souvent Rodèss. On trouve l'explication de cette prononciation locale en regardant l'orthographe de la ville en occitan : Rodès (qui se prononce Roudéss).

"having read that as recently as a few hundreds years ago very few people living in today's Hexagon spoke French"

In 1800 less than 2% of the population of France spoke French

In the 14-18 war the majority of French soldiers didn't know which country they were fighting for, identifying with their region above France, which many didn't know they were part of.

Cowboy,
Reads like the thread here on the english pronunciations...some pronounce XXX, but locals say YYY, which is nothing like it is spelled

Ah! That's why I have so much trouble with French pronounciation.

As my family originates from eastern France, we have a peeve with the way Parisians and other ignorant French people pronounce Metz or Bruxelles.

Kerouac : you should come down here. "o" is sometimes pronounced "ou", "x" is pronounced "ch", the town of Marquixanes is pronounced "Marqueechanes" with a strong final "s" while Baixas is "Bachass".

And French people not from our village always say to us - in France we pronounce the X, when I say I come from Carlyou (approximately). Well, in the village, 'le x ne se prononce pas.'

However, anyone who speaks a language that has 'through', though', 'thought', 'bough' etc. shouldn't complain about French. Not to mention 'hew' is not the same as 'sew', 'how' and 'sow' can rhyme, but so can 'so' and 'sow.' Sixteen years of trying to explain English to French speakers makes me wonder how anyone ever learns this language.

Kerouac, how do the enlightened pronounce Metz and Bruxelles?

Metz = Mess
Bruxelles = Brew Sell

So as a naive American who speaks understandable but very crude French how would one most likely guess at the ez on the end of a town and how to pronounce it

is it one way more usual than the other

I am inclined to think the the -ez is more often like a long a but i really have no idea.

One good thing is that the municipal website (or the Wiki when one exists) of most of the 'complicated' places always tell you very clearly what the correct pronunciation is.

OK, I get why Metz would be confusing to a non-native, but how would the uninitiated French speaker pronounce Bruxelles? (I have always assumed it was Brew Sell, as you say the natives pronounce it.)

Parisians say (approximately) Bruk-sell. They probably pronounce Carlux as Car-luks.

the bru-sell pronunciation is Flemish, I believe.

You can't always predict things that are proper names or names of cities, it depends on local custom sometimes. French pronunciation generally has very regular rules for most words, so the fact you can't predict some proper nouns isn't too surprising. YOu can't predict the pronunciation of many place names in the US, either. Even in some places, you'll hear two different pronunciatiosn by people who live there -- like in Cassis. I was just there a couple weeks ago, and one local I was talking to pronounced the "s" but the guide on the boat cruise (who lived in the area) did not.

you can't predict surnames, either, how do you think the composer Pierre Boulez pronounces his name? You'd probably be wrong.

Parisians say (approximately) Bruk-sell - just asked my French born bred son and he said exactly the same - he is from Orelans which along with the Tourraine i believe is held often as having the purest French - classical French i understand.

The French-speaking in Brussels say more often Bru-Sell (the "u" pronounced French, of course; emphasis on second syllable), the Flemish-speaking say Brussel (again, the "u" as in French, but emphasis on first syllable).