In careful speech, je te vois has three syllables. When said in regular, relaxed speech, it will probably be said with just two.
Where does the third syllable in that example disappear to?
je te vois (careful pronunciation)
j’te vois (relaxed pronunciation)
In everyday conversations, you may hear people say je te as j’te. But how is j’te pronounced anyway?
When je contracts to j’ before t, it makes the French sound ch. So j’te sounds like ch’te.
More examples:
je te donne… (careful)
j’te donne… (relaxed)
je te dis que… (careful)
j’te dis que… (relaxed)
Pronouncing je te informally as j’te is not limited to Quebec French. You’ll hear this feature of informal French throughout the francophone world.
Look again at the last example (j’te dis que…). Do you remember that Quebec francophones pronounce di like dzi? You can read about this in entry #209.
If you liked this entry, you can also read entry #273.