French · Pronunciation Guide

How do you pronounce "prendre" in French?

Q: How do you pronounce prendre in French?

prendre is pronounced with the stress described below. In IPA it is written /pʁɑ̃dʁ/. It means “to take / to have (food).” prahn-druh — one nasal syllable followed by a consonant cluster that barely counts as a second.

prahn-druh — one nasal syllable followed by a consonant cluster that barely counts as a second.

prendre /pʁɑ̃dʁ/

One full syllable plus a trailing cluster: PRAN-dr. Every -endre verb shares this shape — attendre, vendre, descendre — so learning the rhythm once covers a whole family.

Listen: prendre

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Sound it out

pr An unaspirated "p" straight into the uvular "r". No puff of air, and no tongue-tip involvement in the "r".

en The nasal vowel /ɑ̃/, open and routed through the nose.

dre A "d" into a second uvular "r", with the final "e" silent. Two throat "r"s bracket the nasal vowel.

Hear it in a sentence

Je prends le métro tous les jours.

I take the metro every day.

Listen: Je prends le métro tous les jours.

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"Je prends le métro tous les jours" uses "prends" /pʁɑ̃/, where both the "d" and the "s" are silent, so the conjugated form is a single nasal beat. French uses "prendre" for taking transport and also for having food and drink — "je prends un café" means "I'll have a coffee". "Tous les jours" has a silent "s" on "tous" here because it is an adjective, not a pronoun.

Where English speakers slip

The nasal vowel gets a real "n" from English speakers, and the "-dre" gets inflated into a full syllable, so the word comes out as "PREN-der", three beats instead of one and a half. It also picks up an English "r" in both positions. Slow it down: "pr" with the throat, the nasal held with the tongue flat, then "dr" fading out.