French · Pronunciation Guide

How do you pronounce "quatre" in French?

Q: How do you pronounce quatre in French?

quatre is pronounced with the stress described below. In IPA it is written /katʁ/. It means “four.” KAT-ruh, where that final "-re" is barely a syllable — more a scrape of the throat than a vowel.

KAT-ruh, where that final "-re" is barely a syllable — more a scrape of the throat than a vowel.

quatre /katʁ/

Effectively one and a half syllables: KA-tr. The main weight is on "qua", because the "-tre" ending is a trailing consonant cluster rather than a full second beat. This is unusual for French, where stress normally goes to the end — but there is no real vowel at the end to carry it.

Listen: quatre

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Sound it out

qu In French, "qu" is simply a "k". There is no "w" in it, unlike English "quick" or "quart".

a An open "ah" as in "father", kept short.

tre "t" plus uvular "r", with the final "e" barely voiced or dropped entirely. In casual speech this shrinks so far that "quatre" can sound like "kat", especially before a consonant.

Hear it in a sentence

Nous sommes quatre.

There are four of us.

Listen: Nous sommes quatre.

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"Nous sommes quatre" means "there are four of us", literally "we are four" — French uses the verb "être" where English needs a whole different construction. "Nous sommes" is /nu sɔm/, with the "-es" ending silent, and then "quatre" lands at the end of the phrase where you can hear its trailing "-tre" most clearly.

Where English speakers slip

Learners import English "quart" or "quarter" and put a "w" in, saying "kwatr". French "qu" is a bare "k", full stop. The other issue is the ending: some people add a full extra syllable, "KAT-ruh-uh", while others drop the "r" entirely and say "kat". The target is between the two — say the "tr" cluster and let it die away, with the merest ghost of a vowel after it.