French · Pronunciation Guide

How do you pronounce "attendre" in French?

Q: How do you pronounce attendre in French?

attendre is pronounced with the stress described below. In IPA it is written /a.tɑ̃dʁ/. It means “to wait (for).” ah-TAHN-druh — a nasal middle and a trailing consonant cluster. And it means "to wait", not "to attend".

ah-TAHN-druh — a nasal middle and a trailing consonant cluster. And it means "to wait", not "to attend".

attendre /a.tɑ̃dʁ/

at-TEN-dre, with the weight on the middle syllable, since the trailing "-dre" has no vowel to carry a beat. The rhythm matches every other -endre verb.

Listen: attendre

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Sound it out

a A short open "ah", unstressed.

tt A single unaspirated "t" sound; the doubling is orthographic.

en The nasal vowel /ɑ̃/, open and routed through the nose, tongue never touching.

dre A "d" into a uvular "r" with a silent "e" — the same fading ending as "prendre" and "entendre".

Hear it in a sentence

Je t'attends devant la gare.

I'm waiting for you in front of the station.

Listen: Je t'attends devant la gare.

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"Je t'attends devant la gare" elides the object pronoun — "te" becomes "t'" before the vowel — and uses "attendre" with no preposition at all. That is the key point: French says "j'attends le train", never "j'attends pour le train". The verb already contains the "for". "Attends" is /a.tɑ̃/, with the "d" and "s" both silent.

Where English speakers slip

"Attend" in English is a false friend that ruins both meaning and sound: it stresses the second syllable with a real "n", and it means something different. French "attendre" is "to wait for". Phonetically, nasalize that middle vowel with the tongue flat, and let the "-dre" fade rather than becoming a full "-der". Adding "pour" after it is the most common grammatical slip.