I am learning how to bake French Country Bread and the books I read refer to starter or leaven as “levain”. Not being a French speaker I have no idea how to pronounce levain.
Can someone teach me how to pronounce levain? I don’t trust google translate.
Second button here. It’s in the context of the name of a NY bakery, but the second one has a French woman saying the “levain” part with French pronunciation.
Le as in “le”; the “ain” should be a nasal vowel (as in “pain”, “vin”, etc) that does not really correspond with English so it’s better to listen to people saying it than to try to figure out a paragraph-long written explanation of how to pronounce it. Try https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=t5pFy_pu-Tw ; you want the ɛ̃ sound.
Thanks. That works.
Google Translate’s pronunciation is exactly the same as Pronouncewiki’s. I don’t see why one would be more trustworthy than the other.
It sounds to me as though Google Translate is synthesized, whereas the example on PronounceWiki is a real person.
In any event, I wasn’t addressing the issue of which is more trustworthy in general, I know how it’s pronounced and I was just looking for a clear example for the OP.
Just a note on the word. At least in Quebec, levain is used for a sourdough starter, while levure is used for the yeast itself The label on my Fleischmann’s is levure seche active (active dry yeast).