FRENCH : L'atelier.. atelier.. and some other thing..?

Question

I have heard from a native frenchman that one cannot use l' term with the word that starts with a consonant. And then I read a similar question on Yahoo Answers and I get answers where they use examples from real life like - l'hôtel de ville de Paris. L'hotel !!! But it starts with a consonant !! It's almost impossible to pronaunce two such consonants together... isn't there another way how to say this very same sentence WITH 'the' term in another way ??

HMMM !!! Now I got an idea !!! Maybe the french l' term is used with words that are not necessarily consonants or vowels, but depending on how the word is pronaunced. (I don't know how hotel is pronaunced is french), but in spanish you don't say H in words like hotel, hola, habitacion etc.. Is it the same in french ??? And WOW. t is the same in english : You put 'a' and 'an' depending on NOT what letter the word begins with, but rather how you pronaunce it !! right ? eg AN Hour.

SO.. l'hotel is correct, but l'studio isn't. RIGHT?

Answer 1

You are right!

In French words like l'hotel, l'hopital (hospital), l'horloge (clock), etc, the "h" is silent, so you use l' instead of le or la

Answer 2

Actually the rule is not l' before a vowel but before a vowel sound.  Therefore, since "h" is not pronounced in French, the word still starts with a vowel sound.

"H" is NEVER pronounced in French. But it can prevent the use of contraction L' in front of some words as well as the liaison:

- le haricot, les haricots (don't pronounce the "S"), le haras, mettre le hola, à la hâte, la hausse...

That's the problem, a lot of rules and a lot of exceptions!!!

But you'll say l'horloge, l'honneur', l'homme, l'histoire, l'haleine,  l'habit...

Some words start with the semi-vowel sound [j] as the word "yes" in English. As a rule, you will not contract the article:

- la hiérarchie

- le hiéroglyphe

- le hiatus

But it seems like when words starting in a [j] sound don't start with an H, the article gets contracted:

- l'Yonne (a Département of France)

- l'iode

Answer 3

The "h" in french works like the "h" in english; sometimes you pronaunce it, sometimes you not.

You'll never find "le hotel" ,it'll ever ever ever be "l'hotel".

It's easier to understand with "hour"="heure"; you'll never find "la heure"(it's a feminine noun), you'll always find "l'heure" like "the [zi] hour" (or "an hour").

But you'll find in french "le haricot" and it's not a mistake.