Usually from French

barrage

beige

bon voyage

bricolage

camouflage

collage

concierge

corsage

cortege

décolletage

decoupage

dressage

entourage

espionage

fuselage

mélange

ménage

mirage

montage

moulage

persiflage

prestige

rouge

sabotage

triage

7 responses to “ge as in beige”

  1. Stacey Mcdonald says:

    Hi Alison,

    Just wondering if this is where you would put the word garage? I’m teaching soft g and hard g this week and am not sure if the second g in garage is classified as soft or something else? I can’t find the word garage in any lists.

    • alison says:

      Hi Stacey, I think I sat on the fence over the word ‘garage’ as I’d segment the sounds as /g/, /schwa/, /r/, /ar/ /j/, but there are three other pronunciations listed in the Macquarie Dictionary, some people stress the first syllable, some people say /si/ as in vision for the final sound, and some people do both. So I just gave up and left it off my lists. I think you should group it in a way that makes sense to your students in their accent(s), it’s a bit like the word ‘either’, there isn’t one right/wrong way. Hope that makes sense, Alison

  2. Miss Lulu, Mum Of Jessica and Moira says:

    Hi Alison,
    This week I’m teaching /zh/, so in this list, I think you should add:

    massage

    If you search up: “how to pronounce massage”, it says: ma · saazh
    It includes /zh/, but this year, the second year of using Spelfabet, I’m just suggesting.

    Thanks,
    Miss Lulu (Mum of Jessica and Moira and the head teacher of YueCheng)

    • alison says:

      Hi, thanks for this feedback, I use the Macquarie Dictionary, because I have an Australian accent, and it gives several pronunciations of “massage”: /ˈmæsaʒ/ (say ‘masahzh), /-sadʒ/ (say -sahj), /məˈsaʒ/ (say muh’sahzh), /-ˈsadʒ/ (say -‘sahj). When a word has more than one common pronunciation I have tended to leave it off lists as it can be confusing for learners, and I end up with lots of people telling me I’ve got words on the wrong list(s). We probably don’t want words with more than one pronunciation used as cardinal examples of a sound-spelling relationship. But if you and your students all say “massage” with a /zh/ pronunciation there’s no reason not to put it on your own list. All the best, Alison

  3. vihaan.srivatsa says:

    What about marriage?

  4. A. chitt... says:

    I do not think marriage makes the ‘zh’ sound because you pronounce it ‘marrej’ or something like that. Do you think it is correct Alison?

    Thank you

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