Forbidden and Required French Liaisons for Beginners

paris at night for French liaisons You’ve probably heard the word, maybe come across a few, but what exactly are liaisons and how do we use them?

In this tutorial, we are going to explore 4 aspects of French liaisons;

What are French Liaisons
Required Liaisons
Forbidden Liaisons
Optional Liaisons

Test out your new knowledge in our Quick Quiz at the end!

What are French Liaisons?

If you look up the meaning of the word “Liaison” in the English dictionary you might find this definition;

a person who acts as a link to assist communication or cooperation between groups of people

French liaisons act in a similar way. They provide a voiced link between one word to another.

Not sure what I mean, well we have something similar in English. For example we say “an orange” not “a orange”. Why? Because it doesn’t sound right, it doesn’t flow, it’s awkward. So you can imagine how this works in French, with so many silent, final consonants the opportunities for a liaison to another word starting with vowel, could be countless right?

Not really – thankfully. The table below shows the final consonant and the sound it transforms into when put next to a word starting with a vowel.

Final consonant	New sound
D	T as in tent
F	V as in velvet
N	N as in nine
P	P as in puppy
S	Z as in buzz
X	Z as in buzz

So, if one of the consonants from the table above is found at the end of word and next to another word starting with a vowel, that last consonant makes the sound indicated in the table. Sounds simple – just link up the words, but unfortunately, not all words and word combinations will make a liaison and some make a liaison due to noun gender. It can be very confusing.

Below is a short description of the three categories that French Liaisons fall into.

The Three kinds of Liaisons

There are three kinds of liaisons in the French language; the Required, the Forbidden and the Optional liaisons. If you are new to liaisons or French the best place to start is with the Required and Forbidden liaisons. Learn these first and when you feel comfortable, move onto the optional.

Getting the hang of liaisons early-on will help you sound more authentic when you speak French.

The Required French Liaison

I like to call these the Green Light Liaisons. They are commonly used between words that are linked by their function or sense, like in the case of;

pronouns and verbs
adjectives and nouns
articles and nouns
numbers and nouns
one syllable prepositions and noun/article and so on

The table below illustrates these points with examples. Just click on the link to hear examples of French liaisons and please bear in mind the examples in the table below are only part-sentences and would never be spoken as stand-alone phrases in French.

Liaison Required	Example 1	Example 2	Example 3	Example 4
After Pronouns	vous avez	son oncle	sont allés	les enfants
Numbers and Nouns	deux amis	huit oranges	six œufs	cinq ans
One Syllable Prepositions	chez eux	dans un an	sous une table	en avance
After Determiners	un œuf	les élèves	mon ami	ton orange
After preceding adjectives	bon ami	mauvais exemple	grand arbre
After some one syllable adverbs	très occupé	de plus en plus

Two other words requiring liaison but are not included in the table above are;

After “est” as in “est intelligent“
After “comment” when asking about well-being as in “Comment allez-vous?“

Noun gender can sometimes cause liaison confusion. Look at the example “ton orange” in the “determiners” row in the table above. The noun “orange” in French is feminine and would usually have a feminine determiner like ta instead of ton BUT because “orange” starts with a vowel, the determiner becomes masculine so now the words don’t sound so awkward when put together. For example, “ton orange” sounds better than “ta orange” just as “mon amie” instead of “ma amie”.

The Forbidden French Liaison

Think of these as your Red Light Liaisons. These types of words never make liaisons. If you are new to French and French liaisons, it’s easiest to remember the Green light and Red light liaisons. Below is a table outlining the Red Light or Forbidden liaisons in French.

Type of French Word	Example
Before & After Full Names	Albert est
After et	et une de plus
Before onze	il y avait onze
Before oui	on a dit “oui”
After Plural Nouns	les arbres en fleurs
Before the letter a	Je vais à Paris
After Singular Nouns	la maison est
Before H aspiré	en haut

Extra Note: French liaisons are forbidden…

after on, ils and elles within an inversion, when followed by past participles or infinitives;
as in ont-ils eu

Here is a image that summarises the Required and Forbidden French liaisons.
French Required and Forbidden Liaison Rules

????? Optional Liaisons

Like any modern language, French is constantly evolving and so is the use of optional liaisons. Some optional liaisons are;

Some monosyllabic adverbs such as pas, trop, fort
quand when it’s after est-ce que

For more information on optional liaisons I have included a link to Laura K Lawless at French.about.com. Laura details the finer points of the Optional French liaison.

Record your own French sounds and words and compare them to ours in the French Audio Lounge!

This tutorial is designed to offer a guide to the beginner and early intermediate French language learner, who wants to use French liaisons straight away. Many uses of the optional liaisons are best suited for the more advanced French language learner.