LingoDrop
French · Pronunciation Guide
How do you pronounce "travailler" in French?
tra-va-YAY — three syllables, and the "-ill-" in the middle makes a "y" sound, not an "l".
tra-va-ILLER, with the lift on the final syllable. The last two beats — "-vail-" and "-ler" — merge into something close to "vah-YAY", which is where the word gets its momentum.
Listen: travailler
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Sound it out
Hear it in a sentence
Elle travaille dans une banque.
She works in a bank.
Listen: Elle travaille dans une banque.
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"Elle travaille dans une banque" uses "travaille" /tʁa.vaj/, which keeps the "y" sound but drops the infinitive ending, so it is two syllables rather than three. "Dans une" carries an obligatory liaison, /dɑ̃.z‿yn/, with the silent "s" of "dans" surfacing as a "z". Note there is no continuous tense in French: "elle travaille" covers both "she works" and "she is working".
Where English speakers slip
The "ll" is where everyone stumbles, producing "tra-VAL-er" with a real "l". After a vowel, "-ill-" is a "y" — think of the English word "million" and take that middle sound. Learners also load the stress onto the second syllable by analogy with English "travail", which is a related word but a false friend: French "travailler" simply means "to work", with none of the English word's suffering.