Post on 26-Mar-2015
French Alphabet and Pronunciation
French Alphabet & Pronunciation
French Alphabet and Pronunciation
French Alphabet
• a = ahh • b = bay • c = say• d = day• e = ur• f = eff• g = jay• h = ash• i = eeeee• j = jee• k = kar• l = ell• m = em
• n = en• o = oh• p = pay• q = kuh• r = air• s = ess• t = tay• u = ew• v = vay• w = dooble vay• x = eeks• y = eeee grec• Z = zed
French Alphabet and Pronunciation
French Pronunciation
• French can be a challenge to pronounce but not impossible! Persevere and keep coming back to this practice. Also remember people tend to like it when people have an accent so don’t worry if you have one… it’s cute… unless you’re being rude!! Following are a few pointers but irritatingly there are a lot of exceptions (as there are in the English language) but most of the time the following rules apply:
French Alphabet and Pronunciation
• Final consonants are often silent: Paris (pa-ree), Londres (loñdr).
• However, sometimes the ending is pronounced if it is followed by a word which begins with a vowel: avez-vous (avay voo) but vous avez (vooz avay).
French Alphabet and Pronunciation
Common exceptions where the last letter can be heard include:
• Août (August)• Avec (with)• Cinq (five)• Sept (seven) (can hear ‘t’ but not the
‘p’!!)• Huit (eight)• Neuf (nine)• Soir (evening)
There are a few more, but you’ll learn them as you go…
• bel• bœuf• bol• donc• hiver• œuf• tous
French Alphabet and Pronunciation
French Alphabet and Pronunciation
Accents
• Some but not all accents can change the sound of the letter and or the meaning of a word. The main ones are é è ç. You will come across these later. For example:
• ‘manger’ (manjay) = ‘to eat’• ‘je mange’ = ‘I eat’ • j’ai mangé (manjay) = ‘I ate.’
• Have a practice….(‘mange-tout’ means eat-everything!)
French Alphabet and Pronunciation
a = ah e.g. table (pronounced taaaable – think of the sound
you make for the dentist!)
• Confortable (comfortable)• Argent (money)• Adresse (address)• Abbaye (abbey)• Parents (parents)
French Alphabet and Pronunciation
ç (called a cédille) changes the ‘c’ into an ‘s’ sound, the same for ‘c’ followed by ‘e’ or ‘i’
Ç = sCe / Ci = s
• Français (French)• Garçon (boy)• Leçon (lesson)• Ciel (sky)• C’est (it’s)• Ce n’est pas (it’s not)• Glace (icecream)• Citron (lemon)
French Alphabet and Pronunciation
ch = sh e.g. chat (sha) (cat)
• Chambre (bedroom)• Cher (dear both in the meaning of
expensive and ‘my dear’)• Chips (crisps!!)• Prochain (next)
French Alphabet and Pronunciation
É, er, et, ez, es, est, ai, ais, ait, aient = ay
e.g. été (aytay) (summer)• Bébé (baby)• Écosse (Scotland)• Marché (market), marcher (to walk), marchez (you guys
walk)• Enchanté (literally ‘enchanted’ but used to mean ‘delighted
to meet you)• Café (coffee or a café)• Bon appétit (enjoy your meal)• Église (church)• La télé(vison) (telly/television)• Cinéma (cinema)• École (school)• Musée (museum)• Bonne journée (good day – not to be confused with journey
this would be ‘voyage’ in French so when people are leaving you can say ‘bon voyage’)
French Alphabet and Pronunciation
È/è = eh e.g. très (treh) (very)
• Près (near)• Frère (brother)• Père (father)• Bière (beer)• Après (after)• Première (first – like the premier league)• Derrière (behind)• La gare routière (literally the road station –
we call it coach station)
French Alphabet and Pronunciation
Eau(x), au(x) = (oh) e.g. beau (boh)
(beautiful/handsome)• Eau (water)• Agneau (lamb)• Bateau (boat)• Château (castle)• Bureau (office)• Entrevaux (city name)
French Alphabet and Pronunciation
Eu(x) = uh e.g. neuf (nuhf) (nine) (like the
end of enough with a French accent!)
• Je veux (I want)• Deux (two)• Oeuf (egg) (becomes oeux in plural)• Boeuf (beef)
• Je veux deux oeux = I want 2 eggs
French Alphabet and Pronunciation
g + e, i = jay, jee e.g. gel, gîte (jayl, jeet)
• Genoux (knees)• Gémeaux (twins/Gemini)• Gérard (Gerard)• Fromage (cheese)• Étranger (foreigner)• Étrange (strange)
French Alphabet and Pronunciation
gn = nye.g. saignant (say-nyoñ) (rare as
in cooking meat)• Oignon (onion)• Baignoire (bath)• Peigne (comb)• Saigner (to bleed)• Signaler ( to indicate)
French Alphabet and Pronunciation
‘h’ is silent e.g., hôtel (ohtel), homard (omar)
(lobster). • Horrible (horrible)• Hor d’oeuvre (starter)• Horaire (timetable)• Henri (Henry)• Hôpital (hospital) (ô – replaces os)
French Alphabet and Pronunciation
i = eee.g. ville (veel) (town)
• Il (he/it)• Irlandais(e) Irish)• Village (village)• Cinéma (cinema)• Historique (historical)• Sandwich (sandwich)
‘ll’ either makes an ‘l’ sound (as in ville), but it sometimes makes a ‘y’
sound, as in vieille (old).
These will just have to be learned in context, as your vocabulary expands.
French Alphabet and Pronunciation
French Alphabet and Pronunciation
eille = ay e.g. Marseille (marsay)
• Oreille (ear)
• Oreiller (pillow)
• Réveiller (to awaken)
French Alphabet and Pronunciation
o = oh e.g., disco (discoh)
• Coca (Coca Cola)• La poste (post office)• Horloge (clock)• Non (no)• Pommes (apples)
French Alphabet and Pronunciation
oi = wa e.g. roi (rwa) (king)
• Oie (goose)• Soit (either)• Bois (wood)• Croire (to believe)• Soir (evening)• Toit (roof)
French Alphabet and Pronunciation
ou / où = oohe.g. route (rooooht) (road)
• Fou (crazy)• Où (where) without accent means or
(ou)• Rouge (red); Feux rouge (red light on
traffic lights)• Tout, tous, toute, toutes (all of these
mean “all”) Bonne route!
‘ph’ = fphoto
• Photographe (noun) = photographer
• Photo(graphie) (noun) = photograph
• Photographier (verb) = to
photograph someone or something
French Alphabet and Pronunciation
French Alphabet and Pronunciation
‘q’ or ‘qu’ has a hard ‘k’ sound e.g. quinze (sounds like ‘cans’)
(fifteen)• Quatre (four)• Quatorze (fourteen) ‘cat oars’ • Quatre – quatre (four wheel drive)• Qui (who)• Quitter (to leave – can also say
‘partir’)• Cinq (five – one of the exceptions
when the last letter is pronounced)
French Alphabet and Pronunciation
‘r’ is said at the back of the throat with the tongue at the bottom of the mouth (in English the ‘r’ makes the tongue go
up). It sounds like a softer version of a cat
trying to get rid of a furball!
• Travaille (work)• Garage (garage)• Carottes rapées (grated carrots)• Tranche (slice)• Hiver (winter)• Printemps (spring)• Réserver (to reserve)
‘s’ = s when:1. It’s at the beginning of a word.
(sa = his/her)2. There are 2 ‘s’ inside a word.
(déssert)Otherwise, it makes a ‘zz’ sound.
(désert)
• Sabine, Sophie (name)• Susie
French Alphabet and Pronunciation
French Alphabet and Pronunciation
‘th’ is pronounced just ‘t’ which is why French native speakers have a lot of problems with
our th and you may hear them say ‘zat was ze zeory on zursday ze forz’ instead of ‘that was the theory on Thursday the fourth’ although I
haven’t heard this sentence too often!
• Thé (tea)• Thierry (Terry or Thierry as in the
footballer Thierry Henri)• Cathédrale (cathedral) • Théâtre (theatre)• Thon (tuna)
French Alphabet and Pronunciation
u = oo (stomach punch)e.g. sur (soor) (on)
• Jus (juice)• Université (university)• Rugby (rugby)• Jupe (skirt)• Musique (music)
French Alphabet and Pronunciation
ui = weee.g. huit (weet)
• Huître (oyster)• Huile (oil)• Cuire (to cook)• Suivre (to follow)• Lui (him)• Nuit (night)• Puis-je? (may I?)• Puis-je cuire les huîtres avec l’huile pour
lui cette nuit? = May I cook the oysters with oil for him this night?!
French Alphabet and Pronunciation
Mixtures Try these ones!
• Théière (teapot)
• Grenouille (frog)