French Language Stack Exchange is a question and answer site for students, teachers, and linguists wanting to discuss the finer points of the French language. It only takes a minute to sign up.
Sign up to join this community
I have only studied French for a week. I run into the word "compte" and when I check my dictionary it appears that it is pronounced as: "\kɔ̃t\". I have also run the word through various speech-machines and I get an impression that there is a slight "m"-sound but I am not 100%.
Perhaps any of you can tell me if it is general rule that words beginning with: "com" suppress the "m"?
As a French person, I'd say it is a specific case: the root "comp-" is never pronounced with a "m". For instance, the "m" is silent in "comparable", "compatibilité", etc. It is also silent in "comte".
However if there is a double "m", then it is pronounced: "commutation", "commère", "commentaire".
Compte is pronounced the same way than conte and comte.
The problem for you is the "-omp-" part: in this case it's pronounced like a "on".
The same sound than in bon, maison, garçon, leçon...
The classical grammar rule says :
"before m, b, p, one always replaces the n by an m. The only exception is the word 'bonbon'"
The French prefix "con" is also used in English, and means "with". Without that rule, we would write "conmerce","conbinaison", "conptable", but the rule being applied, we write "commerce","combinaison","comptable",
