French · Pronunciation Guide

How do you pronounce "huit" in French?

Q: How do you pronounce huit in French?

huit is pronounced with the stress described below. In IPA it is written /ɥit/. It means “eight.” Roughly "weet", but the "w" is made with the tongue forward, as if you were starting to say the French "u". The final "t" is pronounced.

Roughly "weet", but the "w" is made with the tongue forward, as if you were starting to say the French "u". The final "t" is pronounced.

huit /ɥit/

One syllable. The "ui" is a single glide-plus-vowel unit, not two beats — do not turn it into "oo-EET".

Listen: huit

Free browser voice. Hear it read by a real native speaker inside the LingoDrop app.

Sound it out

h Silent, as every French "h" is. It does, however, block liaison in this word — you say "le huit" rather than "l'huit".

ui The glide /ɥ/ into /i/. This is the tricky bit: start in the position for the French "u" (/y/, tongue forward, lips rounded), then slide immediately to "ee". English "w" has the tongue pulled back, which gives the wrong colour.

t Pronounced when the word stands alone or before a vowel. Before a consonant it usually goes silent: "huit jours" is often /ɥi ʒuʁ/.

Hear it in a sentence

Il est huit heures du matin.

It's eight in the morning.

Listen: Il est huit heures du matin.

Free browser voice. Hear it read by a real native speaker inside the LingoDrop app.

"Il est huit heures du matin" gives you the liaison form: "huit heures" is /ɥi.t‿œʁ/, with the "t" carrying over onto "heures". Notice "du matin", where "du" is the contraction of "de + le" and "matin" ends in the nasal vowel /ɛ̃/ with a silent "n". Telling the time in French always needs "heures" — you cannot say "il est huit" alone.

Where English speakers slip

The main problem is the /ɥ/ glide, which English does not have. Learners substitute a plain "w", producing "weet", which is intelligible but noticeably off; a few overcorrect to a two-syllable "oo-EET". The fix is to feel the French "u" position before the "ee": lips rounded, tongue high and forward, then move. The secondary trap is that the final "t" comes and goes depending on the next word, unlike "sept" where it is always there.