# How do you pronounce Ypres? **URL:** \ **Category:** Factual Questions\ **Created:** [November 17, 2020, 1:43am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-do-you-pronounce-ypres/925758 "2020-11-17T01:43:57Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 12\ **Page:** 1
**Author:** ![obbn](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/o/d6d6ee/32.png) [@obbn](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/obbn)\ **Post date:** [November 17, 2020, 1:43am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-do-you-pronounce-ypres/925758/1 "2020-11-17T01:43:57Z")
Ypres, the WWI battle? I’ve heard it pronounced “wipers” once in a film about WWI, but I’m not sure if that’s correct. ---
**Author:** ![EinsteinsHund](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/einsteinshund/32/8400_2.png) [@EinsteinsHund](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/EinsteinsHund)\ **Post date:** [November 17, 2020, 1:47am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-do-you-pronounce-ypres/925758/2 "2020-11-17T01:47:10Z")
I speak a little French, and I’d pronounce it Eepre, with a short “e” at the end, like in many French words. The “s” is silent. ---
**Author:** ![obbn](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/o/d6d6ee/32.png) [@obbn](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/obbn)\ **Post date:** [November 17, 2020, 1:56am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-do-you-pronounce-ypres/925758/3 "2020-11-17T01:56:18Z")
Come to think of it, the movie I was watching was from the view of British soldiers and their pronunciation of “wipers” was said in jest i think. They had a paper they printed called "The Wipers Times ". ---
**Author:** ![Telemark](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/telemark/32/372_2.png) [@Telemark](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Telemark)\ **Post date:** [November 17, 2020, 2:37am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-do-you-pronounce-ypres/925758/4 "2020-11-17T02:37:32Z")
> **Ypres** ([/ˈiːprə/](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Help:IPA/English) [_EE-prə_](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Help:Pronunciation_respelling_key), French: [[ipʁ]](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Help:IPA/French); [Dutch](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dutch_language): _Ieper_[[ˈipər]](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Help:IPA/Dutch)) From the Wiki page; it looks like it’s pronounced somewhat differently in Dutch vs French. ---
**Author:** ![Banksiaman](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/banksiaman/32/3334_2.png) [@Banksiaman](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Banksiaman)\ **Post date:** [November 17, 2020, 5:48am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-do-you-pronounce-ypres/925758/5 "2020-11-17T05:48:07Z")
Wipers was very deliberately humorous English pronunciation. Adapting French into military slang was a particularly rich field during the Great War - some [Australian examples here](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Digger_slang). ---
**Author:** ![Northern\_Piper](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/northern_piper/32/5304_2.png) [@Northern\_Piper](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Northern_Piper)\ **Post date:** [November 17, 2020, 5:54am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-do-you-pronounce-ypres/925758/6 "2020-11-17T05:54:48Z")
> [@EinsteinsHund](#): > > I speak a little French, and I’d pronounce it Eepre, with a short “e” at the end, like in many French words. The “s” is silent. And the “r” is a soft, voiceless sound, not the hard voiced English r. (“The dog’s growl”, as one of my French teachers called it.) ---
**Author:** ![BigT](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/bigt/32/12044_2.png) [@BigT](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/BigT)\ **Post date:** [November 17, 2020, 8:49am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-do-you-pronounce-ypres/925758/7 "2020-11-17T08:49:23Z")
> [@Telemark](#): > > > **Ypres** ([/ˈiːprə/](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Help:IPA/English) [_EE-prə_](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Help:Pronunciation_respelling_key), French: [[ipʁ]](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Help:IPA/French); [Dutch](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dutch_language): _Ieper_[[ˈipər]](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Help:IPA/Dutch)) > > From the Wiki page; it looks like it’s pronounced somewhat differently in Dutch vs French. Sure, but only superficially. What I mean is that it just converts the French long R sound to a Dutch long R sound, making it sound like a native word in either language. English often does the same with words it gets from French, converting -re words to sound like -er. even respelling then American English. For example, “centre” is pronounced the same as the American “center.” ---
**Author:** ![its\_the\_daddy](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/i/bb73d2/32.png) [@its\_the\_daddy](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/its_the_daddy)\ **Post date:** [November 17, 2020, 2:15pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-do-you-pronounce-ypres/925758/8 "2020-11-17T14:15:23Z")
My Grandad was there: he called it “Wipers”. But he also said that “Coup de grace” was French for lawnmower! ---
**Author:** ![Whack-a-Mole](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/whack-a-mole/32/141_2.png) [@Whack-a-Mole](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Whack-a-Mole)\ **Post date:** [November 17, 2020, 5:41pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-do-you-pronounce-ypres/925758/9 "2020-11-17T17:41:07Z")
[![](https://img.youtube.com/vi/4gvJuHjUm2A/hqdefault.jpg "How to Pronounce Ypres") ](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4gvJuHjUm2A) (The French version sounds really strange to my ears…so much so I am not even sure how I would spell that phonetically.) EE-prah is how I usually hear it spoken. ---
**Author:** ![EinsteinsHund](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/einsteinshund/32/8400_2.png) [@EinsteinsHund](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/EinsteinsHund)\ **Post date:** [November 17, 2020, 6:06pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-do-you-pronounce-ypres/925758/10 "2020-11-17T18:06:28Z")
> [@Whack-a-Mole](#): > > (The French version sounds really strange to my ears…so much so I am not even sure how I would spell that phonetically.) The pronunciation in the clip is not 100% correct, the “r” sound still contains the rhoticity of an American speaker. To hear the correct pronunciation, go to google translate, switch to French, type in Ypres and click on the speaker icon. ---
**Author:** ![Jackmannii](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/jackmannii/32/311_2.png) [@Jackmannii](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Jackmannii)\ **Post date:** [November 17, 2020, 6:13pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-do-you-pronounce-ypres/925758/11 "2020-11-17T18:13:12Z")
If you were British in WWI it was Wipers; if American it was Yeeps. ---
**Author:** ![pjd](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/pjd/32/3009_2.png) [@pjd](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/pjd)\ **Post date:** [November 17, 2020, 7:16pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-do-you-pronounce-ypres/925758/12 "2020-11-17T19:16:29Z")
also, Yfronts is pronounced “Ee-fron”