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I was watching this video and she says that quatre pronounce as "cat".

Also vingt pronounce as "va" and vingt et un pronounce without et.

But this webbpage says that quatre pronounce as qatre and that's more fair in my opinion. Also vingt pronounce as vint and vingt et un pronounce as vint e a. Which is more close to just vint a

Also listen to quatre in the web page. It's not pronounced as cat.

So which one is right? Is there a dialect between them two?

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French numbers

euraad
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  • You are hitting one of my pet gripes! Welcome, by the way :-) It seems to be mostly English speakers who sin against French (and just about any other language). The worst one, which makes me shiver every time, is when I hear 'Ypres' pronounced as 'Eep'. – j4nd3r53n Jan 13 '20 at 11:01
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    Note that both your links point to the same page – Cristol.GdM Jan 14 '20 at 08:07
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    The problem with us English folk is we heard the "un-deux-trois cats sank" rhyme in our youth ... – Will Crawford Jan 15 '20 at 19:47
  • @WillCrawford I heard that French people don't prononce some letters in a word. Why? Was it to hard? – euraad Jan 15 '20 at 20:27
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    Eliding the odd syllable here and there is just as common in English as it is in French, and I've already come across a few common Japanese phrases that drop a mora or two. I think sometimes it's not so much difficulty, as that things you say often and are more than a handful of words seem to want to be abridged... :) For example, "je suis" often becomes something like "schwee" and similar contractions happen to "je ne suis pas" ("schwee pa") and "je ne sais pas" ("chez pa"). – Will Crawford Jan 15 '20 at 21:10

4 Answers4

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Quatre is often pronounced a little like the English "cat" or "cut" (but with a slightly different vowel) unless it is followed by a word starting with a vowel in which case the /r/ is almost always pronounced (e.g. Elle a quatre ans). The final r might not be pronounced in quatre euros (c'est quat'euros) and in a very few cases, an extra /z/ appears in spoken French (quatre-z-yeux, quatre-z-amis, ...). See La fausse liaison dans "quatres enfants" ?

When quatre is ending a sentence, it is also often pronounced /kat/ (e.g. J'en ai vu quat re.)

Vingt before a pause can be pronounced with or without the final t. There is no single "standard pronunciation", the standard mostly depending on the region. The g is on the other hand never pronounced. The pronunciation of the nasal vowel in widely vary depending on the region or the people, and might indeed be close to the vowel /a/. The et of vingt-et-un is always pronounced so vingt-et-un is never pronounced like would be the hypothetical vingt-un (or vingt ans) and even less like we pronounce quatre-vingt-un (where no /t/ is heard).

See also: Pronunciation of "vingt"

and

Mathieu Avanzi, le français de nos régions :

enter image description here

jlliagre
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  • "cat"? You mean "cut", don't you? I learnt "cut-r" or "cut-r(ö)". Disclaimer: Neither English nor French is my native language. – rexkogitans Jan 14 '20 at 14:07
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    @rexkogitans It might be either. The way the vowel is pronounced in the French quat' or the English cat and cut substantially vary depending on the locutor. The usual phonological representation of quat' is /kat/ while "cat" is either /kat/ or /kæt/ and "cut" is /kʌt/. Your mileage may vary. – jlliagre Jan 14 '20 at 14:33
  • I once spoke with an alsacien and we were arguing over the pronounciation of vingt, as I pronounce it vin and him vinT, so I asked him to say 80 and he pronounced it quatre-vin (without the final T). Funny, right? – Rafalon Jan 15 '20 at 07:44
  • @Rafalon Well, that's the standard pronunciation in eastern France. Do you pronounce the T in cent euros ? – jlliagre Jan 15 '20 at 17:11
  • @jlliagre No, I don't. Do they? – Rafalon Jan 16 '20 at 07:30
  • @Rafalon Slightly more French native people do not pronounce the T of cent in cent euros but definitely pronounce it in cent ans. Many "pronounce" that 'T' like a Z in cent hommes... Go figure ;-) – jlliagre Jan 17 '20 at 01:47
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In everyday speech, these are generally fine.

  • vingt can sound as if it has /ɑ̃/ like "an" rather than /ɛ̃/ like "in" depending on how far back the speaker pronounces that vowel. Compare the first two recordings here. And here, one speaker actually uses the same vowel for "cent" and "vingt", whereas the other doesn't.
    • To my knowledge, most speakers delete /t/, but some do not. However, in "vingt-et-un", the liaison from "et" means you will hear the /t/ on the end of "vingt". Listen here.
  • et can be virtually elided in fast speech — not totally but enough to make it hard to hear
  • quatre will tend to lose the /r/, much like every word ending in "-re" or "-le" (table /tab/) when speaking informally

We'd need to see the video to know for sure, but from the description that pronunciation is okay.

Luke Sawczak
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    I would note that while 21 is "vingt et un", 81 is "quatre-vingt un" without the "et". This may be part of the confusion surrounding the "et". – Matthieu M. Jan 13 '20 at 09:12
  • @MatthieuM. Good observation. – Luke Sawczak Jan 13 '20 at 11:37
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    @MatthieuM. No, the two contexts have nothing to do with one another. Just as you keep apart without problem such constructions as « entre chien et loup » and « un chien-loup » so do you not mix « vingt-et-un » and « quatre vingt un». – LPH Jan 13 '20 at 13:03
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    @LPH but people who are still learning the language may nonetheless be confused from time to time about which number properly includes the word et. – phoog Jan 13 '20 at 15:27
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    I'm not convinced by your liaison explanation. The t is also pronounced in vingt-deux, vingt-trois, ... where there is no such liaison. – Édouard Jan 13 '20 at 15:38
  • @phoog Yes, I agree with that, nothing is more true. – LPH Jan 13 '20 at 15:48
  • @Edouard Not sure how you distinguish that from the next consonant. What about 24, 25? – Luke Sawczak Jan 13 '20 at 16:59
  • Thanks to this discussion I have just discovered that I sometimes pronounce the "g", as in "vingt-quatre": vin-g-t-c-atre. But I have never heard anyone cut off the "et" in "vingt-et-un". Go figure. – PatrickT Jan 14 '20 at 20:36
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    @PatrickT Vingue-teu-quatre, really!! – jlliagre Jan 14 '20 at 21:30
  • @jlliagre, yes, I couldn't believe it myself. – PatrickT Jan 14 '20 at 21:34
  • @jlliagre French here, I would say Vin-teu-quatre or faster vinte-quatre, the g is never pronounced (vin-té-un, vinte-deux, vinte-trois, vinte-quatre, vinte-cinq and so on until vinte-neuf) – Rafalon Jan 15 '20 at 07:31
  • @Rafalon Well, the G is never pronounced except by PatrickT, at least according to his statement. Je demande à voir... – jlliagre Jan 15 '20 at 12:45
  • vin-thé-un, surely? – Will Crawford Jan 15 '20 at 19:45
  • @jlliagre Yes, I think I over-read his comment, but I can tell I've never heard anyone pronouncing it – Rafalon Jan 16 '20 at 07:28
  • @jlliagre Concernant 24, et en lisant PatrickT parler de sa prononciation du g, je me suis rappelé mon enfance, pendant laquelle ce nombre recevait un traitement particulier de ma part. Je remplissais la transition entre la nasale (in) et la plosive (k) d'un (gn), obtenant qqch comme [vɛ̃ɲ.kat] ou [vɛ̃ŋ.kat]. Si cette prononciation fait partie de mon passé, je traite, encore aujourd'hui, 22 & 23 de façon similaire, mais les d ou t initiaux de 2 & 3 étant alvéolaires plutôt que vélaires, je remplis plutôt d'un n: [vɛ̃n.dø], [vɛ̃n.tʁwɑ]. – Pas un clue Jan 22 '20 at 15:06
  • @jlliagre Je note aussi que pour ces trois nombres, je réalise [vɛ̃], alors que pour les autres nombres de cette dizaine, je réalise [vẽ], selon la réalisation québécoise habituelle du phonème /ɛ̃/: bien→[bjẽ], gain→[ɡẽ], ceinture→[sẽt͜sʏʁ], brimbale→[bʁẽbal], etc. – Pas un clue Jan 22 '20 at 15:11
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    @ﺪﺪﺪ Intéressant. Quand j'étais petit, je prononçais véingtéung' [vɛiŋteỹŋ], véinnteudeu [vɛiŋtødø], véinnteutrois [vɛiŋtøtʁwɑ], véinnteuquatreu [vɛiŋtøkatʁø] ... – jlliagre Jan 22 '20 at 23:26
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    @jlliagre Quel charmant accent! J'adore ce [vɛiŋteỹŋ]! Par ailleurs, on sent la méridionalité dans le [katʁø]: ce n'est vraisemblablement pas au Québec que des enfants développeraient cette prononciation. – Pas un clue Jan 23 '20 at 13:24
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La langue populaire, à peu près partout, réduit au premier élément les groupes consonantiques finaux dont le deuxième élément est r ou l : quatre prononcé °[kᴀt] ; souffle prononcé °[suf].
À l'intérieur d'un syntagme, cela appartient simplement au registre familier : Votre papa [vɔt pᴀpᴀ]. Dans le nom composé quatre-quatre (§ 597, d, 1°[« véhicule automobile dont les quatre roues sont motrices. »]), la prononciation [kᴀt] pour le premier élément est à peu près générale.
Devant voyelle, le groupe reste intact : Quatre amies.
Autres réductions populaires : -isme, -iste prononcés °[is] dans communisme, communiste, par ex. ; — ex- prononcé °[ɛs] devant consonne : dans exclure, par ex.

[ Le bon usage, Grevisse et Goosse, éd. Duculot, 14e, §36 « suites consonantiques » c) ]

  • Il y a 20 ans on constatait déjà : « [...] tout le monde relâche sa prononciation de façon naturelle, réductions de formes discursives ou non : les jeunes ne sont pas des « massacreurs de la langue » pas plus que les personnes âgées ne sont les « invalides de la langue ». Au-delà de problèmes de génération, le stéréotype de la dévaluation de la jeunesse semble très prégnant : il permet de légitimer le discours de ceux pour qui évolution et dégradation sont confondues. » (Wachs Sandrine. Le relâchement de la prononciation en français parlé en Ile de France. (résumé), Lang. et soc., 1998). –  Jan 13 '20 at 22:38
  • Re: your comment: Just because young people tended to speak a certain way twenty years ago, that doesn't necessarily mean that they continued to speak that way as they grew older. Age-related speech differences can be stable for a surprisingly long time. (Example #1: in anglophone Canada, the letter 'Z' in anglophone Canada is called /ziː/ by children and /zɛd/ by adults. This has been the case for several decades at least. Example #2: in Alsace, people have claimed for generations that alsacien is on the verge of death because kids no longer learn it.) – ruakh Jan 14 '20 at 01:03
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I "Quatre" will be pronounced "cat" especially in rapid speech. At the end of a sentence it is never pronounced "cat" (substandard).

  • Combien de chaises se trouvent dans cette pièce ? Il y en a quatre.
  • Combien en voyez-vous ? J'en vois quatre. Je vais les prendre tous les quatre.

For instance, it is impossible to say "quatre cents fois" rapidly, you have to say "cat cents fois". However, when speaking slowly you do have a choice and it is not wrong to say "quatre cents fois" in full.

II "Vingt-et-un" should always be pronounced /vɛ̃.t‿e œ̃/. The type of pronouciation that you can hear on this page, https://fr.wiktionary.org/wiki/vingt-et-un#Prononciation, is not recommanded; you can still make out /e/ but it is blurred and almost melted into the following /œ̃/; that is not typical of people who speak well.

III "Vingt" is pronounced "vint" in some régions of France, but that is not standard French; the standard pronunciation is "vin" [vε ̃] (TLFi); here are three very good pronunciations of "vingt": https://fr.forvo.com/word/vingt/.

LPH
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