French · Pronunciation Guide

How do you pronounce "acheter" in French?

Q: How do you pronounce acheter in French?

acheter is pronounced with the stress described below. In IPA it is written /aʃ.te/. It means “to buy.” ash-TAY — normally two syllables, since the middle "e" drops out. The "ch" is "sh".

ash-TAY — normally two syllables, since the middle "e" drops out. The "ch" is "sh".

acheter /aʃ.te/

Two spoken beats, ash-TER, with the lift at the end. The conjugated forms restore the missing vowel and mark it with a grave accent — "j'achète" is /ʒa.ʃɛt/, where that middle vowel becomes a full open "eh".

Listen: acheter

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Sound it out

a A short open "ah".

ch Always "sh" in French, never the "ch" of English "church". The only exceptions are a handful of Greek borrowings like "chœur".

e A schwa that most speakers drop entirely, compressing the word from three written syllables to two spoken ones.

ter An unaspirated "t" plus the -er infinitive ending: a closed "ay", "r" silent.

Hear it in a sentence

Je dois acheter du pain.

I have to buy some bread.

Listen: Je dois acheter du pain.

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"Je dois acheter du pain" uses the partitive "du" because bread is being taken as an uncountable quantity — French will not let you say "acheter pain". "Pain" is a single nasal beat, /pɛ̃/, with the "n" silent as a consonant. Two verbs stack, with "dois" conjugated and "acheter" left in the infinitive.

Where English speakers slip

Giving the "ch" its English value produces "atch-eter", which is the single loudest error here — French "ch" is "sh" almost without exception. Learners also carefully pronounce the dropped schwa, giving a slow "a-shuh-TAY". And the accent shift in the conjugation catches people out: "achète" has a clearly audible middle vowel that the infinitive does not.