In English, the stress can fall on any syllable in an individual word, e.g., “police” /po-lees/, “policy” /po-li-si/. The stressed syllable is in bold.
In French, the stress always falls on the last syllable of the word.
Here are some examples of French words:
| “police” | “politque” | “aliment” | “téléphone” |
| /po-lees/ | /po-lee-teek/ | /a-lee-mã/ | /te-le-fon/ |
| (police) | (policy) | (food) | (phone) |
If the words are strung together to form a phrase, the stress falls on the last syllable of the phrase. For example:
| une maison /µn me-zõ/ | a house |
| une petite maison /µn p(ə)-teet me-zõ/ | a small house |
| une petite maison blanche /µn p(ə)-teet me-zõ blãsh/ | a small white house |
| une belle petite maison blanche /µn bel p(ə)-teet me-zõ blãsh/ | a small beautiful white house |
Other lessons in Level I:
Level I – Basic
2. Similarities to English & Particularities of The French Language
