French · Pronunciation Guide

How do you pronounce "fermer" in French?

Q: How do you pronounce fermer in French?

fermer is pronounced with the stress described below. In IPA it is written /fɛʁ.me/. It means “to close.” fehr-MAY — the first "r" is a throat rasp, the second one, in the ending, is silent.

fehr-MAY — the first "r" is a throat rasp, the second one, in the ending, is silent.

fermer /fɛʁ.me/

fer-MER, weight on the second syllable. Like "parler" and "trouver", the word contains two "r"s with opposite fates — the one inside is sounded, the one in the ending is not.

Listen: fermer

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Sound it out

fer An "f", an open "eh" as in "bed", then the uvular "r". The vowel keeps its own shape and is not absorbed into the "r".

mer An "m" plus the -er infinitive ending: a closed "ay" with the "r" completely silent.

Hear it in a sentence

Ferme la fenêtre, il fait froid.

Close the window, it's cold.

Listen: Ferme la fenêtre, il fait froid.

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"Ferme la fenêtre, il fait froid" is an imperative in the "tu" form, which drops the "-s" that the present tense would have. "Fenêtre" has a circumflex marking a lost "s" and ends in the same fading "-tre" cluster as "être": fuh-NEH-tr. "Il fait froid" is the standard weather construction — French says "it makes cold", never "il est froid" for the weather.

Where English speakers slip

English "firm" and "farmer" both pull the first vowel into an "r"-coloured blur. French wants a clean, flat "eh" followed by a separate throat sound. Then comes the familiar -er trap: "fer-MAIR" instead of "fer-MAY". Getting both right in one word is good practice precisely because the two "r"s behave differently.