Italian Translation
Non mi piace più il Natale.
Could anyone explain a rule of thumb for pronouncing or not pronouncing “-s” in “plus” after the verb?
Rather easy: -s is never pronounced in ne… plus.
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In case some of you out there want the “it depends” version, here goes…
- if “plus” is used to mean “more”, “moreover”, "more of (something), or if you’re talking about the mathematical symbol “+”, then the “s” is pronounced
- if “plus” is used to mean “no more”, “not anymore”, or “neither”, then the “s” is silent
An approximate shortcut is:
- When used in a “positive sense” → pronounced
- when used in a “negative/restrictive sense” → silent
Notable exceptions: comparisons:
In “>” comparisons (“comparatif de supériorité” in French), we use “plus … que” (more … than), and pronunciation of the “s” in this case, depends on the following sound:
- if the following word/syllable starts with a consonant sound, then “s” is NOT pronounced
- if the following word/syllable starts with a vowel sound, then “s” will be pronounced "z"
Il est plus grand que moi. → “g” is a consonant sound => the “s” in plus is silent
Elle court plus vite que lui. → “v” is a consonant sound => the “s” in plus is silent
Il est plus âgé que vous. → “â” is a vowel sound => the “s” in plus will be pronounced “z”
And the trickiest for last:
Il est plus habile qu’elle. (he is more nimble/adroit than her.)
→ Here, “habile” starts with consonant “h”, but it is the sound of the first syllable that matters.
Since the “h” in “habile” is silent, “habile” is really pronounced {a.bil}
=> the first sound following the word “plus”, is actually the “a” sound (i.e a vowel sound)
=> the “s” in plus will be pronounced “z”.
(The “z” sound helps connect the 2 words when speaking. In French, we call it “liaison” or “faire la liaison”).
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