Uploaded February 2012 | Updated September 2026, 8 hours ago

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Hi, I'm Heather Hansen, Clear Speech Specialist at English Pronunciation Lab, and I'm here today with a very special Valentine's Day Pronunciation Quick Fix.

So what is our very special Valentine's Day word? Well, it's none other than "rendezvous".

Rendezvous, rendezvous.
3 syllables, word stress on the first syllable: ren (ron).

This is a great Valentine's Day word because in English it can be used as either a verb or a noun. The verb means to meet with someone special, and it has an element of secrecy to it. So you might rendezvous with a very close friend or a lover. As a noun, the word means an actual place where you like to meet people.

Looking more closely at the pronunciation, this word comes from French so the pronunciation does not follow the spelling and is probably different than you'd expect. There should not be a Z sound or an S sound. So no, 'rendezz-vousss'. That's not nice! Pretend the Z and the S don't even exist: RON-day-voo, RON-day-voo.

Used in a sentence:
Do you and your beau have plans to rendezvous tonight?
That cafe is our favorite rendezvous.
Let's rendezvous tonight. (wink!)

So there you have it! Rendezvous - in under 60 seconds.