Biden setting the stage for another late night “mail in” ballot surprise
(media.communities.win)
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Why the fuck is n'est-ce pronounced "nes"? I swear I'd be fluent in French by now if not for the schizophrenic pronunciations.
Cause the "t" is silent.
French is a language that evolved a lot throughout the centuries. Parts of its modern incarnation might seem strange to people first learning it, because of vestiges of Old French that still remain. Also, (and I'm not being facetious, this actually happened) a lot of silent letters you see in words are there because people thought they looked nicer with them there, and those subjective impressions eventually became standard.
But anyways, if you want a language that doesn't add superfluous letters willy-nilly, try learning German. They actually make it a point to pronounce every syllable and letter. I really like speaking it, although it's unfortunate that Germany's primary language is now Arabic, so you're unlikely to get much use from it.
I get that the t is silent, but what happened to the "ce" part? Is that also silent?
Keyed and arete
It isn't silent.
N'est-ce-pas is pronounced, loosely, "Ness-Say Pah".
Certain lazy French accents, the arizonians of the French accent world, will slur the words together, creating something akin to "Nessuh (smashed into one syllable) pah", but the "ce" is still audible compared to "N'est pas", which would be pronounced "Nay Pah", the "s" and the "t" both being silent by english definitions of pronunciation.
No, you do pronounce the "ce".
"Ness-ce-pah", basically.
kek