French · Pronunciation Guide

How do you pronounce "petit" in French?

Q: How do you pronounce petit in French?

petit is pronounced with the stress described below. In IPA it is written /pə.ti/. It means “small.” puh-TEE — a weak first syllable, and the final "t" is silent.

puh-TEE — a weak first syllable, and the final "t" is silent.

petit /pə.ti/

pe-TIT, weight firmly on the second syllable, with the first reduced almost to nothing. That imbalance is what makes the word sound French rather than like the English "petite".

Listen: petit

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

Sound it out

pe An unaspirated "p" plus a weak schwa. In fast speech this vowel disappears entirely, so "petit" often sounds like "p'tee".

ti An unaspirated "t" plus a tense, pure "ee".

t Silent in the masculine. In liaison before a vowel it surfaces — "un petit enfant" — and in the feminine "petite" it is always pronounced.

Hear it in a sentence

Je voudrais un petit café.

I'd like a small coffee.

Listen: Je voudrais un petit café.

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

"Je voudrais un petit café" puts the adjective before the noun, which is where "petit" always goes. The polite conditional "voudrais" does the softening work. Note that "un petit café" in a French café means a single espresso, not a small filter coffee — the words are literal but the reference is cultural.

Where English speakers slip

English has borrowed "petite", and that borrowing is the feminine form with an audible "t" and the stress placed like an English word. The masculine "petit" ends in silence and is stressed at the end: puh-TEE. Learners also give the first syllable a full "peh" or "pay", when it is a schwa that native speakers frequently drop altogether. Say it fast and light: p'TEE.