In the final part of this five part series on pronouncing the 5 hardest sounds in the French accent we will confront one of the stranger nuances.
Part 5: [w] and [ɥ]
Welcome to the weird and wonderful world of the “w” related sounds in French.
[w] as in oui and moi - this is straightforward, like a very short [u] sound with the tongue all the way back
[ɥ] as in huit and lui - this is subtly different, like a very short [y] sound with the tongue all the way forward
You can hear the difference in the words Louis and lui:
Louis is flatter and longer, with the tongue at the back of the mouth
Lui is sharper and shorter, with the tongue at the front of the mouth
An example sentence: Oui, je suis moi
This sentence features both sounds in turn: [w]i, je s[ɥ]i m[w]i
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As promised throughout the series, here is the sound file that you can play and hear all five sounds being spoken in turn. Work on copying the voice and you will soon start to develop your own French accent that will win you compliments and praise for how convincing you sound. If you’re lucky 
Thank you. This is really great. The audio file is super cool. Very fun to practice, and really interesting to listen to both American and British French accents.
I’m sorry if you already posted about this before, but I’m a relatively new reader. It would be really awesome to listen to a ‘French foreign accents’ comparison, in addition to the British and American one here, if it’s possible.
Merci !
Hey, thanks! This really helped me with the ɥ/w contrast, one of the few things in French phonology I’d always struggled with (and this as a trained linguist).
I’m going to have to start memorising where the two sounds are found though. I’d memorised most of those words as though they contained a simple /w/, so now I’m left to hope the error hasn’t become too fossilised.
Merci beaucoup!