Is there a rule for using liaison after "mais."

Question

I hear the different usages of liaison with "mais" before words beginning with a vowel.  In your video "La Bretagne se révèle en Côtes d'Armor" the speaker sometimes uses it and sometimes does not before the same sound, making her difficult to understand. Is it simply facultative or is there more to it. Thanks.

Accepted Answer

Hi John,
Liaisons after 'mais' in French are not compulsory.
When 'mais' is followed by an adverb which modifies it, the liaison is very frequent but optional,  
e.g. mais encore, mais alors, mais enfin.
Hopes this helps!

Answer

I haven't listened to the narration yet but in my experience spoken everyday French can be quite difficult to understand because of its sometimees very indistinct pronounciation, the omission of some vowels and so on. For example "Je t'appelerai" sounds more like "j'tappel'rai".

Anyway, Laura has a concise and well put together section on liasons in French here: https://www.lawlessfrench.com/pronunciation/liaisons/

Hope that helps, -- Chris.

Answer

Bonjour John,
At times, there is not a liaison but an «enchainement» of sounds :
Here is Laura's lesson on this topic.
https://www.lawlessfrench.com/pronunciation/enchainement/

Answer

Here are a few links from other sites with liaison discussion that might be beneficial:
http://www.llf.cnrs.fr/sites/llf.cnrs.fr/files/biblio/Surrey-liaison-slides.pdf
https://www.lawlessfrench.com/pronunciation/liaisons/
https://frenchcrazy.com/2015/01/french-liaisons-and-enchainement.html/
http://www.languageguide.org/french/grammar/pronunciation/liaison.html
There are also several lessons on liaison, elision and enchainement on YouTube, just search "French liaison" and in that way, one can also here the liaisons pronounced.

Answer

Thanks Ron. I will check some of those sites.