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Livre, entre, autre, article, règle are examples of what I'm talking about.

I've never been sure whether I should pronounce those final two letters. When a native speaker pronounces such words, sometimes I can hear them and sometimes I can't.

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It depends on the situation. Are you talking normally, singing, or are you angrily yelling at someone? – Zoot Jul 11 '12 at 19:35
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....the second two. – Aerovistae Jul 11 '12 at 20:06

2 Answers

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Dropping liquids after consonants (e.g. in words that ends with -ble, -dre, -tre, -fle etc.) is an extremely common feature of everyday pronunciation in French (Grevisse 14th ed., §36c). Pronouncing many final schwas (which would be the primary reasons these consonansts get realised) is generally considered either an affectation or a dialectal feature.

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up vote 4 down vote

In French it's not the the re or le that is left unpronounced, but the final e.

Pronouncing livre is like pronouncing livr. Some people may actually force the last consonant and you get a sound like livreu.

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