French · Pronunciation Guide

How do you pronounce "croire" in French?

Q: How do you pronounce croire in French?

croire is pronounced with the stress described below. In IPA it is written /kʁwaʁ/. It means “to believe / to think.” krwahr — one syllable with two throat "r"s bracketing a "wa" glide. Genuinely hard, and worth slowing down.

krwahr — one syllable with two throat "r"s bracketing a "wa" glide. Genuinely hard, and worth slowing down.

croire /kʁwaʁ/

One syllable, densely packed. Because both "r"s are uvular, the back of your tongue does most of the work and the tip never leaves the floor of your mouth — a good physical check that you are shaping it the French way.

Listen: croire

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Sound it out

cr A hard "k" straight into the uvular "r". Both sounds are made at the back of the mouth, so this cluster is easier than it looks once you stop trying to use the tongue tip.

oi The "wa" glide, as always for this spelling.

re A second uvular "r", with the final "e" silent. So the word opens and closes on the same throat sound.

Hear it in a sentence

Je crois que c'est vrai.

I think it's true.

Listen: Je crois que c'est vrai.

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"Je crois que c'est vrai" uses the conjugated "crois" /kʁwa/, which drops the final "r" of the infinitive and its silent "s". Note the required "que" — French cannot omit it the way English drops "that". "Vrai" ends in the open "eh" of the "ai" spelling, so it is one syllable: vreh.

Where English speakers slip

English speakers reach for a tongue-tip "r" in both positions and end up with something like "kroy-arr", which has too many moving parts. Build it backwards: say "wa", add the throat "r" after it, then the "k" and the first "r" in front. Keep it to one beat — the commonest error is stretching it into "kro-WAHR".