Pronunciation Guide

The Sounds

These are often not too difficult to master, with a little practice. It might be useful to learn the phonetic transcription of the sounds of French, especially if you intend to go beyond this book. You can then find out how a word is pronounced by looking it up in a good bilingual or monolingual French dictionary. Each entry will have its phonetic transcription. Here, we have given both the phonetic transcription of most French sounds and, whenever there is one, a nearest English equivalent.

In the following section square brackets denote a symbol from the International Phonetic Alphabet (IPA).

Vowels

IPA French examples Nearest English equivalents
[a] taxi, ami, chat cat, tap
[i] vie, dit, lycée sleep, tea (but shorter)
[u] vous, pour, nous you, fool (but shorter)
[y] tu, rue, plus no equivalent
[e] thé, aller, chez

a cross between fit, pin and jelly, tepid
[ε] faire, mère, belle fair, mare
[o] mot, beau, moto raw (but shorter)
port, homme, donne porridge, olive
[œ] peur, leur, meuble fur, purr
[ø] peu, veux, deux no equivalent
[ə] or [(ə)] premier, ce, le perform, preparation

Tips for Pronouncing [y], [ø] and [o]

–  for [y] and [ø], your lips should be forward, making an O shape (rather like for a kiss!)

–  for [y], start with the sound [i]

–  for [ø], start with the sound [ə]

–  for [o], your tongue should be more forward in your mouth than for , your lips more forward and your mouth less open.

The Four Nasalised Vowels

There are no English equivalents for these. They originate from the basic vowels [a], , [ε] and [œ], which means that, in effect, the position of the tongue and the lips and the opening of the mouth are the same as for the basic vowels. They are called nasalised because the air used to pronounce them partly travels through the nasal cavities. Check whether you are saying them correctly, by feeling to see if there is a little vibration when you pinch lightly just below the bridge of your nose.

banc, vent, temps, amphithéâtre

long, sombre

vin, américain, plein, faim

lundi, parfum

is only pronounced in the south of France. It becomes as soon as you move northwards, above the Massif Central.

When an, en, em, on, om, in, ain, ein, aim, un, um are followed by a vowel or another n or m, they are not pronounced as nasals:

J’aime le chocolat

Monaco

Une Italienne

Une année

Consonants

IPA French examples Nearest English equivalents
[p] papa, partir, appartement Peter, port
[t] thé, tarte, vite tea, tenor
[k] copie, qui, kayak keep, colour
[b] bon, béret, abbaye beep, boat
[d] départ, aide, adorer deep, adapt
[g] gare, algue, gondole gorilla, garbage
[f] téléphoner, fils, famille fire, phone
[s] ici, ça, dessert, sel, nation salt, sell
cher, vache, acheter fish, mesh
[v] vous, avec, verre very, vintage
[z] zéro, faisons, désert desert, Pisa
[З] je, gîte, Georges pleasure, leisure
[l] sel, lentement, lit life, let
[r] rue, programme, Paris no equivalent
[m] mon, mère, montagne mother, merry
[n] non, année, Nîmes no, never
vigne, Agnès, agneau annual

Tips on Pronouncing the Sound [r]

It is pronounced at the back of the mouth, rather like when you are trying to clear your throat! Try it on its own first and then with a vowel sound before it:

tard

tort

terre

fort

Once you think you are near enough, try to do it with a vowel after it:

rue

retard

rôti

rapide

Spelling and Sounds

In French, the way a word is spelled is often enough to know how it is pronounced. Here are the most basic rules that are useful to memorise.

The Letter ‘c’

– is pronounced [k] in front of the letters a, o and u:

cadeau, cou, cure

– is pronounced [s] in front of the letters e, i and y:

cela, cite, cygne

–  c + h are normally pronounced :

chat, cher, chute

–  c + h are sometimes pronounced [k]:

psychose, charisme

Note that ç is always pronounced [s] and used in front of the letters a, o and u:

ça, les Açores

The Letter ‘g’

– is pronounced [g] in front of the letters a, o and u:

gare, gorille, guerre

– is pronounced [З] in front of the letters e and i:

gérer, gîte

The Letter ‘s’

– is normally pronounced [z] when it is placed in between two vowels:

désert, isotherme, phase

– is normally pronounced [s] in all other cases:

statistique, social

Note that the letters ‘ss’ are used in between two vowels to produce the sound [s]:

dessert, associer

The Letter ‘e’

Is normally pronounced [ε] in front of a double consonant:

belle, terre, prennent

Accents and Sounds

Accents in French can be disconcerting for a learner, but they are important, because, in a lot of cases, they will give you the key to how a word is pronounced and will also help to differentiate between words which are nearly identical but have different meanings.

Compare:

marche walking, working
marché market, walked

The following accents can be found on the letters a, e, i, o and u:

´ accent aigu acute accent
` accent grave grave accent
ˆ accent circonflexe circumflex accent