LingoDrop
French · Pronunciation Guide
How do you pronounce "l'histoire (f.)" in French?
lees-TWAHR — the "h" is silent, the article fuses on, and the "oi" is a "wa" glide.
l'his-TOIRE, weight on the second syllable. Two beats, with the "oi" as a single glide-plus-vowel unit rather than two.
Listen: l'histoire (f.)
Free browser voice. Hear it read by a real native speaker inside the LingoDrop app.
Sound it out
Hear it in a sentence
Raconte-moi une histoire.
Tell me a story.
Listen: Raconte-moi une histoire.
Free browser voice. Hear it read by a real native speaker inside the LingoDrop app.
"Raconte-moi une histoire" is a "tu" imperative with the stressed pronoun attached by a hyphen — imperatives require "moi", never "me". "Une histoire" links across the mute "h": /y.n‿is.twaʁ/. The word covers both a story and history, so "l'histoire de France" is the country's history.
Where English speakers slip
Learners aspirate the "h", producing "la-EES-twar" with a break in the middle. There is no break and no "h". They also split the "oi" into two vowels. And the English "history" has three syllables with front stress; the French word has two with the weight at the end, and ends in a throat "r" rather than a "y".