Just one comment: final r’s are not always pronounced. Never in the infinitives of -er verbs.
So the French sound like Bostonians.
I learned that, too, but the word “clef” is an exception because the “F” is silent.
I agree. That is a very important exception to the rule
But the “n” in roman à clef is pronounced.
My French is not merely elementary, it’s pre-school.
How can you learn a language that has exceptions?
Oh, wait… 
TabaC
MonteR
CleF
CuL FusiL AiL
B-b-b-but… 
In standard French indeed. But there are dialects in which it is pronounced as a slight glide, something like “epEy”.
If you read them phonetically, it comes out… funny.
That’s because it’s a case of liaison - a word ending in a consonant followed by a word beginning with a vowel. In such a case, the consonant is often pronounced because otherwise the last vowel of the first word and the first vowel of the next word (in this case, the à) would come right after another, which would be awkward to pronounce. When roman is not followed by a vowel, the n remains silent.
Is it? The liaison sounds really weird to me.
Is it really silent? I mean, “roman” is pronounced differently than “roma”, the ending vowel ‘a’ has a nasal tone that’s indicated by the ending ‘n’.
Point taken, the -n modifies the pronunciation of the -a in a way that might mean it shouldn’t be called silent. I’ll admit I’m not enough of a linguist to say with certainty whether this makes it a silent letter or not.
The French version of “O Canada” has a line
“Car ton bras sait porter l’épée”, and the last word comes out as “lay-pay-uh”.
Clef (meaning key) is an interesting case. It comes from Latin clavis, which became clef in Middle Ages French with plural form clefs. This was back when the French were pronouncing all of the letters in a word, and it seems that clefs wasn’t that easy to say. So the ‘f’ sound dropped out of the plural, leading to words pronounced “clef” and “cles”. The singular form then lost the ‘f’ sound by analogy with the plural. But the spelling ‘clef’ was retained, because of tradition. Also an ‘f’ looks a bit like a key if you’ve had enough wine. Today both clé and clef are considered correct spellings.
I have the impression that final vowels, although normally silent, are often pronounced in poetry and songs.
I don’t consider ée a double letter because they are distinct vowels.
Not really relevant to this thread, but I can’t help mentioning the common Quebec name Pouliot, in which the t is not silent, although you would expect it to be. The Pouliot I met pronounced it as though it was Pouliottt. Presumably, people didn’t pronounce it correctly unless he emphasized it.
The composer Jean Françaix said his family traditionally pronounced the “X” at the end of their surname, but he gave up on correcting people who pronounced it “fran-SAY” (speculating that perhaps they just didn’t want to say “sex” out loud).
True, but I cannot bring myself to write clé.
Clef looks so much better to me, perhaps for the reason you mention, even though I don’t drink.
There’s indeed some licence when it comes to poetry and, even more so, songs. You can opt for the pronunciation that fits the meter, although the rules may have been stricter for classical verse.
We’ve had a thread about this phenomenon (words looking like the things they spell) a little while back, but couldn’t agree on a word for it.
How about