LingoDrop
French · Pronunciation Guide
How do you pronounce "boire" in French?
bwahr — one syllable. "b" plus a "wa" glide plus a throat "r", with nothing between them.
A single dense syllable, sharing its shape with "voir", "croire" and "soir". Because there is no unstressed syllable to lead in, your mouth has to be set up before you start.
Listen: boire
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Sound it out
Hear it in a sentence
Je bois de l'eau.
I'm drinking water.
Listen: Je bois de l'eau.
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"Je bois de l'eau" uses the partitive "de l'" — French cannot say "I drink water" with a bare noun, so it says "I drink some of the water". The article elides before "eau", giving "l'eau" as one syllable. "Bois" is /bwa/, with the final "s" silent, so the conjugated form is the infinitive minus its "r".
Where English speakers slip
Reading the "o" and the "i" as separate vowels gives "bo-AHR", which is almost everyone's first attempt. It is one beat: "bwar". The other issue is the final "r", which comes out as an American curl and drags the vowel with it. Practise by saying the English word "bwah" (as in a cartoon laugh) and then adding a throat rasp at the end without moving your tongue tip.