We believe, using the International Phonetic Alphabet, you would write: gry-jεr'.

(continued from home page) It is more difficult to express using English letters, because - as a French word - the u is pronounced as in French or as a German u with an umlaut (ü), a sound that does not really exist in English. Language teachers tell you to start with a long e sound and slowly purse your lips to turn it into a u sound. Somewhere about halfway in between is the right vowel sound. Without being able to transcribe that sound in English, a written English pronunciation probably looks like this: groo-YAIR.

To complicate matters, some people say it gree-YAIR. We believe those people, in a vain effort not to look foolish, are not trying hard enough to purse their lips. How are they ever going to learn?