Many painters in Degas' time thought that they could be better painters by copying famous paintings.

[ How do you pronounce "Degas'"?
1. ..z 2. ...ziz 3....(no 's' sound )]

No "s" sound.

Degas is pronounced day-gah

Degas' is pronounced day-gahz

I can't understand the whole thing that he said.

(What is the meaning of the sentence?
1. I can't understand what he said at all.
2. I can't understand some(?) of what he said.
3. I cann understand almost all the things that he said, but not all.)

See http://www.jiskha.com/display.cgi?id=1282306218

To pronounce "Degas'," you would pronounce it as option 1: ..z. The 's' in "Degas" is pronounced as a soft "z" sound. So it would be pronounced as "Duh-gahz" or "Duh-gah(z)." The apostrophe at the end indicates the possessive form, meaning that the paintings belong to Degas.