French · Pronunciation Guide

How do you pronounce "se souvenir" in French?

Q: How do you pronounce se souvenir in French?

se souvenir is pronounced with the stress described below. In IPA it is written /sə su.və.niʁ/. It means “to remember.” suh soo-vuh-NEER — four light beats, with the weight right at the end and a real throat "r" to finish.

suh soo-vuh-NEER — four light beats, with the weight right at the end and a real throat "r" to finish.

se souvenir /sə su.və.niʁ/

The whole phrase climbs to its final syllable, -NIR. The two schwas along the way keep it light, so what you hear is roughly "suh-soov-NEER" once the weak vowels compress.

Listen: se souvenir

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Sound it out

se The reflexive pronoun: a hissing "s" and a weak schwa. It changes with the subject — je me souviens, tu te souviens.

sou An "s" plus the back "oo" of "soup", lips pushed forward.

ve A "v" plus a weak schwa, often nearly swallowed in fast speech.

nir An "n", a pure "ee", and a fully pronounced uvular "r" — the -ir infinitive ending.

Hear it in a sentence

Tu te souviens de moi ?

Do you remember me?

Listen: Tu te souviens de moi ?

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"Tu te souviens de moi ?" shows two things at once: the reflexive pronoun agreeing with the subject ("te", not "se"), and the required preposition "de" before the thing remembered. You always remember "de" something. "Moi" is the stressed pronoun any preposition demands. "Souviens" ends in the nasal /jɛ̃/, one beat: soo-VYEN.

Where English speakers slip

Learners drop the reflexive pronoun, saying "je souviens", which is not French — the verb only exists in its reflexive form. They also forget the "de": "tu te souviens moi" is a very common error. Phonetically the risk is over-articulating the two schwas into full vowels, making the phrase sound plodding; let them shrink so the word runs to its final beat.