'tout' (everything) vs 'tous' or 'toutes' (all of them)

Question

'Tout' ('too') means 'everything, and its pronunciation must be distinguished from:
'Tous' ('toos') and 'toutes' ('toot') mean all of them. 
With these ('all of them')
Here, there are 2 cases:
1. when used as the noun: (tous etaient content - all of them were happy-'toos');
2. when used as an adjective of the noun 'they' (as in 'they all' or 'they were ll'): (ils etaient tous content - they were all happy - 'too')
The weird one is 'ils l'ont tous eu' - they all passed - by the rule 'tous' should be pronounced 'too', but is pronounced 'toos' because of liaison. Is this correct?

Aurélie Drouard · Accepted Answer

Bonjour Michael !

Actually "tous" is always pronounced [toos].
The two cases are:
"Ils étaient *tout* contents." where "tout" emphasises "contents" = They were *very/all* happy.
"Ils étaient *tous* contents." here it goes with "ils" = They were *all (of them)* happy.

In the second case, you'll always pronounce [tous].

I hope that's helpful!
À bientôt !