French · Pronunciation Guide

How do you pronounce "le temps" in French?

Q: How do you pronounce le temps in French?

le temps is pronounced with the stress described below. In IPA it is written /lə tɑ̃/. It means “time / weather.” luh TAHN — a nasal vowel with three silent letters after it. The "m", "p" and "s" are all silent.

luh TAHN — a nasal vowel with three silent letters after it. The "m", "p" and "s" are all silent.

le temps /lə tɑ̃/

The phrase peaks on TEMPS, a single nasal beat. Five letters in the noun produce two sounds, which makes it a striking example of how conservative French spelling is.

Listen: le temps

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Sound it out

le A light "l" plus a weak schwa, often nearly dropped.

tem An unaspirated "t" plus the nasal vowel /ɑ̃/. Written with "m" because a "p" follows, but the sound is the same open nasal as in "dans".

ps Both silent. They survive from Latin "tempus" and are visible in relatives like "temporel", where the consonants come back.

Hear it in a sentence

Je n'ai pas beaucoup de temps.

I don't have much time.

Listen: Je n'ai pas beaucoup de temps.

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"Je n'ai pas beaucoup de temps" elides the negation before "ai" and uses "beaucoup de" — the fixed quantity expression, always with "de" and never with an article. The sentence ends on the nasal, where the pitch peaks. Note that "le temps" means both time and weather, so "quel temps fait-il ?" asks about the weather, not the hour.

Where English speakers slip

Learners pronounce the "p" or the "s", producing "tomps" or "tahmps". Neither belongs — the word is a single nasal vowel after the "t". They also give the nasal a real "m" sound because of the spelling; the "m" is a nasalization marker used before "p" and "b", exactly as "n" is elsewhere. And the time/weather ambiguity trips people up in both directions.