Five hard-to-spell French words for English-speakers

An American dictionary has published the most difficult words to spell for English-speakers and most of them come from the French language.

The Merriam-Webster dictionary has joined forces with the language-learning company Babbel to analyse 10 years of data to see which words were most likely to eliminate contenders during the well-known US spelling contest Scripps National Spelling Bee.

As English borrows some of its vocabulary from French, here are five French words which are often misspelled by English-speakers.

• Clafoutis (pronounced cla-foo-tee)
  A dessert consisting of a layer of cherries covered with batter and baked.
• Bourrée (pronounced boo-ray)
  This is used for dancers. It is a ballet combination that consists of small crossing steps.
• Pissaladière (pronounced pee-sa-la-dyair)
  This is a pastry topped with olives, onions and anchovies, a speciality in the South of France.
• Réseau (pronounced ray-zoh)
  The Oxford dictionary defines this as a network or a grid (it has the same meaning in French). But it can also be used in astronomy for a group of meteorological stations.
• Paillasson (pronounced pie-ya-son)
  The Merriam-Webster dictionary defines it as a coarsely woven natural or synthetic straw used for hats. In French paillasson means door mat.