I am getting confused on how to pronounce fête. I hear some people say sete and others say fete.
Which is the correct way of saying it?
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14Nobody pronounce it "sete".– jlliagreCommented Nov 9, 2015 at 23:28
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2Concerning the pronunciation of différent accents, i.e. "é", "è" and "ê", many french people say that the pronounciation is different and that, according to what you hear, you can deduce the accent on the word. As a french native speaker, I pronounce all accent the same and I never was able to identify the accent by hearing the word. In case of ambiguities between 2 possible accents, e.g. for "près" (near) and "prés" (meadows) , I only deduce the good orrthograph from the context.– GraffitoCommented Nov 10, 2015 at 0:01
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2@Graffito It really depend of your accent, I guess. The differences between « é » and « è » was obvious everywhere I lived, and both accents can't be interchanged, but it's probably not the case in the South, indeed.– BlackholeCommented Nov 10, 2015 at 1:01
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1@Graffito This is regional indeed. I regularly have a similar debate about the pronunciation of imperfect and simple past (e.g. j'allais vs j'allai, which I don't pronounce the same but people from other parts of France can't tell apart when they speak).– ChopCommented Nov 10, 2015 at 9:45
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2Can you give an example of the sete pronunciation? I can't relate it to anything.– GAM PUBCommented Nov 11, 2015 at 21:30
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4 Answers
The mainstream pronunciation is /fɛt/, with a southern French accent, that might be /fɛ:tə/, with some eastern French accents and Belgian ones, that might be /fɛ:t/ or /fe:t/, and finally in Quebec, the ê normally becomes a diphthong or a long vowel so you might hear [faɪ̯t], [faɛ̯t], or [fɛ:t], the latter mostly in official settings. On the other hand, [fɛt] (with a short vowel) will always be interpreted a representing fait or faite, the p.p. of faire.
In any case, nobody pronounces it "sete".
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Don't forget /fɛ:t/ in Belgium where /fɛt/ would be interpreted as "le fait". (/fe:t/ is sometimes heard but strongly stigmatized). Commented Nov 11, 2015 at 11:28
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1As it is, [faɪ̯t] "fête" and [fɛt] "fait" (as in <je l'ai FAIT>) are in phonological opposition, which means that /ê/ and /è/ are different phonemes in Quebec French. (Note: <fait> and <faite> have the same pronunciation in QF.)– Nou LaCommented Nov 5, 2018 at 16:39
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The correct pronunciation is [fɛt].
You can listen this in "Prononciation" section of Wiktionary.
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3Generally speaking, it's more useful to know whether a pronunciation is “standard” or “usual” rather than “good”. That's especially true in this case, since native speakers pronounce the word in different ways.– RelaxedCommented Nov 11, 2015 at 10:38
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I pronounce it the same as "faite", if you want it without the IPA. My accent would be closest to Parisian. The "ê" is usually pronounced ɛ, like an e before double consonants for instance in chienne. Bonus: The origin of the circonflexe or "hat" accent in this case was the replacement of the s in the old french version "feste". It's still there in other forms of the word. For example, "des activités festives". Frequently the accent denotes this deletion of another letter/sound, but this is not always the case.
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+1 It’s interesting (?although maybe coincidental?) that your way of pronouncing it corresponds with the “faite” used in a circa 1050 example of its Etymology et History (see here near the bottom): «célébration faite à jour marqué». Your mention of the ‘missing’ “S” also makes me wonder if perhaps what @Tia27 really meant to say was: “I hear some people say feSte” & that “I hear some people say Sete” was just a typo. As mentioned above in a comment, nobody pronounces it ‘sete,’ but perhaps some people [still] pronounce it ‘feste.’ Commented Nov 11, 2015 at 15:29
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Yeah that's what brought it to mind. I've never heard it pronounced "feste" , but it makes more sense and seems more likely than "sete" which just leaves me with ???.– Nicook5Commented Nov 11, 2015 at 17:15
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1I wouldn't expect any native French speaker to say "feste" these days. Only a Spanish, Portuguese, Italian, Catalan etc. native speaker might erroneously use that word en French.– jlliagreCommented Nov 12, 2015 at 8:37
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The non-Gallo-Romance language varieties still spoken in and native to Southern France have <festa> too. These language varieties belong to the same family as Catalan, Occitano-Romance, a subdivision of Ibero-Romance.– Nou LaCommented Nov 5, 2018 at 17:18
It is consistently pronounced as "FET". Perhaps you had confused it with somebody saying one of the following: cet(s), cette(s), or c'est?
