Why French words are not pronounced the way they are written

Do you know the French word évidemment? It is used when something goes without saying; if it is clear or very obvious.

Do you see the letter ‘a’ in that word? Not at all, but you will hear it, because if you did not already know, French words with the ending -emment are pronounced ‘ammon’.

So évidemment becomes ay-vee-da-mmon. Well, clearly...

This is far from a lone example; many French words have a pronunciation different from what you might reasonably expect.

Look at the spelling of femme, another word that is given a secret ‘a’ sound to become ‘fam’, when you would expect it to be pronounced ‘fem’ like the beginning of féminin or the similar word la flemme.

And you know the word mon so why does its sound disappear in monsieur (muh-syuh)?

One example you might not have registered is how ‘second’ in French sounds more like zuh-gond, and then there is wagon whose ‘w’ is spoken as a ‘v’ (vagon).

Now let us look at the everyday verb faire: je fais, tu fais, elle fait are all pronounced as ‘fay’, yet nous faisons becomes ‘fuzzon’ and for vous faites it’s ‘fett’.

We accept this because it is one of the first verbs we learn, but when you look at it again, you realise how confusing it is. 

Next, take the word for a fact – un fait – which is also pronounced ‘fay’, except in the phrase ‘in fact’ or ‘actually’ – en fait. In this context, you inexplicably have to pronounce the ‘t’ at the end: ‘fett’.

This confuses even the French who, when asked, might tell you that this is because there is an ‘e’ on the end (there is not) or might simply look at you blankly and conclude: c’est comme ça, quoi (that’s just how it is).