How to pronounce rouge


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ʁThe French 'r' is generally what is technically called a "uvular fricative". In simple language, that means you bring the back of your tongue close enough to the back of the mouth that it causes friction (the "raspy" sound that you hear) with the escaping air. 
uThe French 'ou' vowel is pronounced with the back of the tongue "pushed up towards" the back of the mouth and the lips rounded. The back of the tongue is not quite as close to the roof of the mouth as in the French 'close o' sound. 
ʒThis sound is the sound represented by the 'g' in "beige", or the 's' in the English word "leisure". 
əThe 'schwa' or 'neutral e' is pronounced with the tongue in a "central, relaxed" position and the mouth also in a 'half open, relaxed' position. Note that many French speakers actually tend to pronounce this vowel as a 'close eu' vowel (as occurs at the end of words ending in -euse), or at least with some rounding of the lips.Even though the word ends in -e in the spelling, notice how in the pronunciation, this vowel isn't "fully" pronounced. Instead, the syllable before it receives the stress.