French · Pronunciation Guide

How do you pronounce "hier" in French?

Q: How do you pronounce hier in French?

hier is pronounced with the stress described below. In IPA it is written /jɛʁ/. It means “yesterday.” yehr — one syllable. The "h" is silent and the "i" becomes a "y" glide.

yehr — one syllable. The "h" is silent and the "i" becomes a "y" glide.

hier /jɛʁ/

One syllable. Some speakers give it two, /i.jɛʁ/, especially in careful speech, but the single-beat version is standard.

Listen: hier

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Sound it out

h Silent, as always in French. It does not block anything here — the word behaves as if it began with the vowel.

i A "y" glide, since a vowel follows. This is what makes the word one syllable rather than two.

er An open "eh" plus a uvular "r". Unusually for French, this "-er" ending is pronounced with the "r" audible — it is not the silent infinitive ending.

Hear it in a sentence

Hier, je suis resté à la maison.

Yesterday I stayed at home.

Listen: Hier, je suis resté à la maison.

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"Hier, je suis resté à la maison" is the passé composé with "être" as the auxiliary — "rester" is one of a small group of verbs that take "être" rather than "avoir", and the participle then agrees with the subject. A woman would write "restée", with no change in sound. "À la maison" means "at home".

Where English speakers slip

Learners give the "h" a breath and split the word into "hee-AIR", two syllables with an English "r". Neither belongs: no "h", one beat, throat "r". The "-er" spelling also misleads people who have learned that infinitives end in a silent "ay" — this is a different word class entirely, and the "r" is fully pronounced.