French · Pronunciation Guide

How do you pronounce "l'année (f.)" in French?

Q: How do you pronounce l'année (f.) in French?

l'année (f.) is pronounced with the stress described below. In IPA it is written /la.ne/. It means “year.” la-NAY — the article is fused on, the "nn" is a real consonant, and "-ée" is a closed "ay".

la-NAY — the article is fused on, the "nn" is a real consonant, and "-ée" is a closed "ay".

l'année (f.) /la.ne/

Two syllables plus the fused article: l'an-NÉE, with the weight at the end. The "(f.)" is the dictionary's gender note, not part of the word — it tells you the hidden article is "la", which is why elision produced "l'".

Listen: l'année (f.)

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

Sound it out

l' The article "la" with its vowel dropped before the vowel-initial noun. It adds no syllable of its own — the "l" simply attaches to the front.

a A short open "ah".

nn A single "n" sound, and a real consonant. The doubling keeps the preceding vowel oral rather than nasal.

ée A closed "ay" from the accent aigu, with the second "e" silent. That silent "e" is the feminine marker.

Hear it in a sentence

L'année prochaine, je vais en France.

Next year I'm going to France.

Listen: L'année prochaine, je vais en France.

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

"L'année prochaine, je vais en France" uses the feminine "prochaine", pronounced /pʁɔ.ʃɛn/ with a real "n" — unlike the masculine "prochain", which ends in a nasal vowel. "En France" uses "en" because France is a feminine country. The near future "je vais" plus infinitive covers the English "I'm going to".

Where English speakers slip

The relationship with "an" confuses people: "an" is a nasal one-syllable word for a year as a unit of counting, while "année" emphasises the year as a span. Phonetically, learners nasalize the first syllable by analogy with "an" — but the doubled "nn" here blocks that completely. And they give the apostrophe a beat, when it exists to remove one.