Alphabet, accents and pronunciation
The marks é, è, ê, ç, silent letters, liaison and elision (l', j').
French uses the same 26-letter alphabet as English, plus a few accent marks. Spelling and pronunciation are far apart, but they follow rules much more consistently than English does.
Accent marks
French accents do not mark stress. They change the sound of a vowel or distinguish two words.
| Mark | Example | What it does |
|---|---|---|
| accent aigu é | café, été | closed «ay» sound, as in say (without the glide) |
| accent grave è à ù | mère, là, où | on è: open «e» as in bed; on à/ù it only separates words (a/à, ou/où) |
| circonflexe â ê î ô û | forêt, hôtel | often marks a lost s: forêt = forest, hôpital = hospital |
| tréma ë ï | Noël, naïf | the vowel is pronounced separately |
| cédille ç | français, garçon | c sounds like «s» before a, o, u |
Stress falls evenly, with a slight emphasis on the last pronounced syllable of a word or phrase: café, restaurant. Don't stress the first syllable as in English «RES-taurant».
Silent letters
- Final -e is silent: table [tabl].
- Final consonants -s, -t, -d, -x, -z are usually silent: petit [p'ti], grand [grã], deux [dø].
- h is never pronounced: hôtel [otel].
- The verb ending -ent is silent: ils parlent [il parl].
Key letter combinations
| Spelling | Sound | Example |
|---|---|---|
| ou | «oo» as in food | vous, rouge |
| oi | «wa» | moi, voiture |
| au, eau | «oh» | au, beau |
| ai, ei | «e» as in bed | maison, neige |
| eu, œu | like the vowel in her with rounded lips | deux, sœur |
| u | say «ee» with rounded lips (no English equivalent) | tu, rue |
| an/en, on, in | nasal vowels: air through the nose, no «n» sound | enfant, bon, vin |
| ch | «sh» | chat, chercher |
| gn | «ny» as in canyon | montagne |
| j, ge, gi | «zh» as in measure | je, rouge |
| r | in the throat, not with the tongue | rouge, Paris |
Elision and liaison
Short words like le, la, je, me, te, se, de, ne, que drop their vowel before a vowel or silent h and take an apostrophe:
- l'ami, l'école, l'hôtelthe friend, the school, the hotel
- j'aime, je n'ai pasI love / I like, I don't have
In liaison, a normally silent final consonant is pronounced when the next word starts with a vowel: les amis [lezami], vous avez [vuzave], un enfant [œ̃nɑ̃fɑ̃].
Test yourself
-
Write correctly: le + hôtel
Show answer
l'hôtel -
Write correctly: je + habite à Londres
Show answer
J'habite à Londres. -
Is the final -s in «Paris» pronounced?
Show answer
No: [pari]. -
What English word hides in «hôpital»?
Show answer
hospital (the circumflex replaces the s)