The sounds of French

Why it matters

French uses the same 26 letters as English, but almost none of the same rules. Your eyes will lie to you. Here’s proof:

The good news: French spelling is far more regular than English. Once you know the patterns on this page, you can read almost any word out loud, even one you’ve never seen. This lesson is the one every other lesson leans on, so take it slowly and say everything out loud.

How French sounds

1. The alphabet

You’ll need the letter names to spell your name, an email address or a postcode, and to understand someone spelling one back. The pink tiles are the ones English speakers get wrong.

Two phrases to learn with it: Comment ça s’écrit ? (How do you spell that?) and Ça s’écrit… (It’s spelled…). For double letters, say deux: “deux L” for ll.

2. Vowel sounds

French vowels are short and tense. Don’t let them slide into a second sound like English “no” (which is really “no-oo”). Some letter pairs make one single sound:

Vous and vu (seen), dessous (under) and dessus (on top), roue (wheel) and rue (street): the difference between ou and u changes the meaning. It’s worth practising in a mirror.

The accented vowels (é, è, ê and friends) get a whole lesson of their own tomorrow.

3. Nasal vowels

When a vowel is followed by n or m in the same syllable, the air goes through your nose and the n is never fully pronounced. French has four of these sounds:

The nasal switches off when the n or m is doubled or followed by a vowel, because then it starts a new syllable and is said in full: bon (nasal) → bonne (bon-nuh), un → une, américain → américaine. That on/off switch shows up again in Lesson 10, where it’s how many feminine adjectives sound different.

4. Consonants that change

Most consonants behave as in English. These don’t:

The French r is the one everyone worries about. Start by saying a “g” as in “go”, then relax it into a breathy rasp without letting your tongue touch the roof of your mouth. It doesn’t need to be perfect to be understood.

5. Silent endings

French writes plenty of letters it doesn’t say, especially at the end of a word. The basic rule: a final consonant is usually silent, except for four.

Three refinements make the rule work:

1. -er drops its r. Every -er verb (parler, aller, manger) and many nouns (le boulanger, le premier) end in a sound like “ay”. The r is silent.
2. In verbs, -ent is silent. Ils parlent sounds exactly like il parle. (In nouns and adverbs it’s a nasal: le vent, souvent.)
3. A final -e wakes up the consonant before it. Grand (grahn) → grande (grahnd). Petit (p’tee) → petite (p’teet). This is how you’ll hear many feminine words.

A few short words also keep their final s: le bus, mars, un os (a bone).

6. Linking words together

French hates two vowels bumping into each other, so it smooths them over in two ways.

Elision. Small words that end in a vowel drop it and take an apostrophe before a vowel or a silent h: je → j’, le / la → l’, de → d’, ne → n’, que → qu’. So j’habite, l’hôtel, l’eau.

Liaison. A normally silent final consonant is pronounced when the next word starts with a vowel or silent h, and it joins that word. The s and x become a “z” sound, and the n of un is said:

The h aspiré. A few words that start with h block both elision and liaison, even though their h is silent too. You just have to learn them: le héros, le hockey, le hamburger, le haricot (bean). Dictionaries mark them with an asterisk or an apostrophe before the word.

Examples

• Vous voulez du café ?Would you like some coffee? (ou in vous and voulez, u in du)
• Un bon vin blanc, s'il vous plaît.A good white wine, please. (all four nasal vowels)
• Le poisson n'est pas du poison !The fish isn't poison! (ss hisses, s buzzes)
• Il est grand. Elle est grande.He is tall. She is tall. (the final -e wakes up the d)
• Les amis arrivent.The friends are arriving. (liaison: lay-zah-mee, and a silent -ent)
• Les héros arrivent.The heroes are arriving. (h aspiré: no liaison)
• Ils parlent beaucoup.They talk a lot. (silent -ent, silent p)
• J'habite ici.I live here. (elision before a silent h)
• La montagne est magnifique.The mountain is magnificent. (gn = ny, twice)
• Mon chat adore le chocolat.My cat loves chocolate. (ch = sh)
• Qui est là ?Who's there? (qu = k)
• Il fait chaud, je bois de l'eau.It's hot, I'm drinking water. (au, eau = oh; oi = wa)
• Comment ça s'écrit ? Ça s'écrit L-É-A.How do you spell that? It's spelled L-É-A.

Memory tricks

Don’t get French fried