French · Pronunciation Guide

How do you pronounce "le fils" in French?

Q: How do you pronounce le fils in French?

le fils is pronounced with the stress described below. In IPA it is written /lə fis/. It means “son.” luh FEESS — the "l" is silent and the "s" is pronounced. Exactly backwards from what the spelling suggests.

luh FEESS — the "l" is silent and the "s" is pronounced. Exactly backwards from what the spelling suggests.

le fils /lə fis/

The phrase peaks on FILS, one syllable ending in a crisp "s". Singular and plural are spelled and pronounced identically, so the article carries the number.

Listen: le fils

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Sound it out

le A light "l" plus a weak schwa.

fi An "f" plus a tense, pure "ee".

l Silent — genuinely unusual, since final "l" is normally pronounced in French. This word is a one-off exception.

s Pronounced as a hissing "s", which is also unusual since final "s" is normally silent. The word inverts both of the rules you have just learned.

Hear it in a sentence

Leur fils a dix ans.

Their son is ten.

Listen: Leur fils a dix ans.

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"Leur fils a dix ans" uses "avoir" for age again, and "dix ans" carries an obligatory liaison: /di.z‿ɑ̃/, with the "x" surfacing as a "z". Note that on its own "dix" would be /dis/ with an "s" — so the same letter gives an "s" in isolation and a "z" before a vowel. "Leur" has the rounded /œ/ vowel.

Where English speakers slip

Almost everyone says "feel", pronouncing the "l" and dropping the "s", which is the exact reverse of the truth. It is "feess". The word is also easy to confuse with "fil" (thread), which really is /fil/ — so "le fils" and "le fil" swap their consonants. This is one to memorise as a standalone oddity rather than derive from a rule.