In the clip from yesterday with Martin Matte, we heard him say j’me fâche, which is an informal contraction of je me fâche.
Can you hear the difference between je me fâche and j’me fâche?
In j’me fâche, j’me is said in just one syllable as jme, rather than two distinct syllables as je / me. The contracted j’me is a spoken usage.
Try saying these aloud:
je me dis / j’me dis
je me fais / j’me fais
je me sens / j’me sens
Je te can contract in a similar way in spoken language to j’te, but with an additional change in pronunciation: the contracted j’ before t is pronounced like the French ch sound, so j’te sounds like ch’te.
Try saying these aloud:
je te dis / j’te dis
je te donne / j’te donne
je te parle / j’te parle
If you’re wondering if you, as a non-native speaker of French, should use these contractions yourself, go ahead and use them. They’re the normal pronunciations in regular, spoken language.
