'Tres haut' - pronunciation?

[Laura Corin]

Native French speakers: our choir director is telling us not to pronounce the 's' when we sing these words. Is that right? If so, when is the 's' not pronounced before a vowel/silent 'h'?

 

Thank you

 

Laura

[OregonNative]

Tres is not pronounced with and "s" at the end-sounds like tray. I don't understand the 2nd question, so I can't help on that.

[Imprimis]

My understanding is that tres haute is pronounced something like "tray o."

 

I do understand that you sometimes pronounce the "s" if there is a word following that begins with a vowel sound, but this is how I've heard this phrase pronounced by French speakers.

[Mergath]

I took a little French in college, and we would have pronounced it "trayzo," or something like that. We were taught that if the next word starts with a vowel sound, you pronounce the consonant at the end of the previous word.

[Amy loves Bud]

Native French speakers: our choir director is telling us not to pronounce the 's' when we sing these words. Is that right? If so, when is the 's' not pronounced before a vowel/silent 'h'?

 

Thank you

 

Laura

 

I would have thought you would pronounce it, too, to make an elision with the h. But it seems there is agreement with your choir director in the choir world:

 

Choir forum post on this topic.

[Laura Corin]

I would have thought you would pronounce it, too, to make an elision with the h. But it seems there is agreement with your choir director in the choir world:

 

Choir forum post on this topic.

 

I wonder if he read the same posts.

 

Laura

[Lucy in Australia]

The "h", being a consonant, even if it is silent, stops the "liason" between the "s" and the vowel. If the words were "tres original", you would pronounce it "trez original".

[chiguirre]

I noticed that Tres-haut (sorry, no accents) is hyphenated. I think that's what's changing the pronunciation.

[OrganicAnn]

I would had said it was pronounced with a little bit of a z like trez

 

I'm not sure since pp mentioned the hyphen if that changes things.

[Corraleno]

The "h", being a consonant, even if it is silent, stops the "liason" between the "s" and the vowel. If the words were "tres original", you would pronounce it "trez original".

 

It depends on whether the h is "muet" or "aspiré". Sometimes there is liason, as in "trois heures"

Jackie

Edited November 20, 2010 by Corraleno

[EKS]

I thought that there was a difference between spoken French and French that's being sung, in that in song, more of the letters are voiced. If that makes any sense at all...

[unity]

The word "haut" is one of those so-called aspirated h's, and it's not a quality of the word tres but a quality of the h. Like, you would write "le haut" and not "l'haut" whatever.

 

A hyphen wouldn't change the pronunciation. The hyphen would only go there anyway in the phrase "most high," which makes sense since you're singing a hymn.

[Laura Corin]

The word "haut" is one of those so-called aspirated h's, and it's not a quality of the word tres but a quality of the h. Like, you would write "le haut" and not "l'haut" whatever.

 

 

I'd forgotten there were words like this.

 

Laura

[Colin Howard]

In Racine’s text ‘Cantique de Jean Racine’, set to music by Fauré, I have sung ‘trés haut’ as ‘tray ho’.  This is how I direct my choir in Dorchester to sing the phrase, and it is the agreed pronunciation at both the Cathedral Choirs in Salisbury and Winchester.

Colin