How do you say "Les Halles" in French?

Les Halles is a district in Paris which is named after the old market-place which was demolished in 1971 to make room for the Forum des Halles, a partially underground shopping center.

In French, a word which begins with an ‘h’ is treated like a vowel, and there is a liaison with the previous word, unless it is a so-called ‘aspirated ‘h’.

The ‘aspirated h’ refers to a sound which is no longer used in French and causes the ‘h’ to be treated like a consonant, which means no liaison.

Regardless of whether an ‘h’ is an ‘aspirated h’ or not, remember that there is no ‘h’ sound in French. The ‘h’ is always silent.

It’s probably easier to learn on a word by word basis unless you are studying French quite seriously. What all this means is that in ‘Les Halles’, the ‘h’ is an ‘aspirated h’, and so you should NOT say lezahl. Look at the phonetic spelling and listen to the sound files.