Hey - just a simple question. I speak French and I know that there are several words like this where some people pronounce the 's' and some don't - is this one of those? How do the people from Nantes pronounce it? I don't need any commentary on the rest of the word - just 's' or no 's'.
Thank you!

No s.

no 's'

A few years ago I was taking the TGV from Paris to Anger.

A small child near me was intently listening to the conductor announce the two upcoming stops. When he said, "Anger, Nantes" the child giggled.

Does that sound like something funny in French?

No big deal, just curious.

thanks - I had been told that the 's' was pronounced by someone who I wasn't quite sure knew what they were talking about, so I wanted a second opinion. Thanks again!

I was in Nantes last year and the locals pronounced it with the S .... N, A (like knot), N (no T) S.

We were in Nantes last summer, but I can't remember a single person in town saying the name to us...it never came up in conversation. However, in Angers, which is not that far away, everyone we talked to when planning our trip there (the hotel staff, the woman at the SNCF boutique who sold us our TGV tickets, etc.) pronounced without the s.

TC-- that is simply not credible. The final T is not pronounced in <i>content</i> but would be in <i>contente</i>. In other words, normal French pronunciation would pronounce the T in Nantes. If the S is pronounced, it usually after a vowel sound such as in Sens, but Nantes ends with the T sound. Finally, the N used to designate a nasal vowel such as AN is not pronounced.

&quot;Anger - Nantes&quot; contains the sounds of the word 'genante' which means 'embarrassing', or, referring to a female child, means 'a nuisance'.

Was the child who giggled a girl?

Harzer

An acquaintance from Nantes -- who spoke of it so often and so glowingly that I resolved never to travel there -- did not pronounce the final S.

I stand corrected and will have my hearing checked immediately.

A general rule of French pronunciation is that a final s is never enunciated just as an s between two vowels is pronounced like a &quot;z&quot;

Thanks harzer. The child was a girl. So that sounds reasonable.

Is it a rule?

If the local football team are doing well, does absolutely every French person keep the Nantes &quot;s&quot; silent in the headline &quot;Nantes en premiere place&quot;?

In spite of 200 years of centralising monomania and the country's bizarre delusion that governments can tell people how to speak their own language, French still has dialects, and arcane special-case pronunciation conventions.

Here in the US my 68 year old dad still pronounces the &quot;s&quot; at the end of &quot;Illinois&quot; the state.

Being originally from Nantes, now based in Paris... I can tell that you don't pronounce the S at the end....

As Joelle and the other forumites said, we don't pronounce the &quot;s&quot; at the end of &quot;Nantes&quot;, &quot;Tours&quot;, etc., thus, no &quot;liaison&quot; can be made between &quot;Nantes&quot; and a word starting with a vowel (in the sentence &quot;Nantes est une belle ville&quot;, the &quot;s&quot; in Nantes is not heard).

BTW, my in-laws live in Nantes and I lived there for almost 2 years after getting married, it's a very pleasant and lively city, much more lively than my native town, Rouen Marie

Marie, Rouen sounds good to me. It sounds like even in France, the grass is always greener on the other side of the fence.

Marie007: Any city where you live would be lively.

But I commiserate about your natal city, Rouen.

Ooh, what a can of worms !

Michael : &quot;If the S is pronounced, it usually after a vowel sound such as in Sens, but Nantes ends with the T sound.&quot;
It could be argued that the 'n' in Sens just as much a consonant as the 't' in Nantes, innit ?

Intrepid1 : &quot;A general rule of French pronunciation is that a final s is never enunciated&quot; What about Reims ?

Marie007 : &quot;we don't pronounce the &quot;s&quot; at the end of &quot;Nantes&quot;, &quot;Tours&quot;, etc., thus, no &quot;liaison&quot; can be made between &quot;Nantes&quot; and a word starting with a vowel (in the sentence &quot;Nantes est une belle ville&quot;, the &quot;s&quot; in Nantes is not heard).&quot; But what about Les Arcs ?

I can see where TC is coming from - since there is a 't' and an 's' at the end, I can imagine either one being pronounced - but not both.