French · Pronunciation Guide

How do you pronounce "vrai" in French?

vreh — one syllable. A "v" straight into a throat "r", then a flat open "eh".

vrai /vʁɛ/

One syllable. The feminine "vraie" sounds identical — the added "e" is purely visual — which makes this one of the rare adjectives where gender is invisible to the ear.

Listen: vrai

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Sound it out

vr A "v" into the uvular "r" with no vowel between them. English only produces this cluster across word boundaries, so inside a syllable it takes deliberate practice.

ai An open "eh" /ɛ/ as in "bed". Short, flat, no glide.

Hear it in a sentence

Ce n'est pas vrai.

That's not true.

Listen: Ce n'est pas vrai.

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"Ce n'est pas vrai" elides the negation before "est" and puts the adjective at the end, so the open "eh" gets full length. This is the everyday phrase for "that's not true" and also, with the right intonation, for "you're kidding". Spoken casually the "ne" drops out: "c'est pas vrai".

Where English speakers slip

English speakers break the "vr" cluster with a vowel, giving "vuh-RAY", or substitute an English "r" that turns it into something like "vrei". Keep it tight and make the "r" at the back of the throat. The vowel is the other issue: "ai" here is the flat open "eh" of "bed", not the "ay" of "day". Compare "vrai" with English "vray" and you will hear that the French version stops where the English one starts gliding.