An Introduction to French Pronunciation

The Vowels in Detail 73
/e/ is always pronounced as a back vowel. Apart from a few
proper names (e.g. Laon /le/, Saint-Saëns /shse:s/), the
spelling is always an, am, en or em, e.g. chanter /ʃete/, dans
/de/, sang /se/, champignon /ʃepif/, lampe /le:p/, cent /se/,
menton /metf/, temps /te/.
10.10.6 It is very noticeable that many foreigners fail to
make the distinction between /e/ and /f/. The two vowels
must however be clearly distinguished. Those who detect a
failure in their own pronunciation to differentiate between
members of such pairs as the following should, therefore,
make a conscious effort to do so:
/f/ /e/
blond /blf/ blanc /ble/
don, dont /df/ dans, dent /de/
long /lf/ lent /le/
(nous) montons /mftf/ (nous) mentons /metf/
ronger /rfʒe/ ranger /reʒe/
son, sont /sf/ cent, sang, sans /se/
ton, thon /tf/ tant, temps /te/
tromper /trfpe/ tremper /trepe/
10.11 Unvoicing of Vowels
Whereas in many other languages vowels are normally fully
voiced throughout, one result of the tenseness of French
articulation is that the last fraction of a vowel before a pause is
not infrequently voiceless – i.e. the vocal cords stop vibrating
while the lip- and tongue-positions for the vowel are maintained
and air continues to be expelled from the lungs. If we
indicate this unvoiced segment by a superscript form of the
appropriate vowel symbol and the symbol for voicelessness
[ ˚ ] (see 18.2.2), we can represent the pronunciation of vowels
in these circumstances as follows:
oui [wi q ], je l’ai vu [ʒc le vy z ], c’est tout [sε tu w ]