French Sounds and Pronunciation

French letters do not always sound the way an English speaker expects, but the mapping is regular: each letter or letter group corresponds to a fixed sound, called a sound-symbol correspondence (SSC). Learn the rules once and you can pronounce almost any word on sight.

These rules are assessed directly. In the Listening dictation you must hear a sound and write the correct spelling; in the Speaking reading-aloud task you must see a spelling and produce the correct sound.

Written	English speaker expects	French actually says
chat (cat)	"chat"	"sha"
qui (who)	"kwee"	"kee"
fille (girl)	"fill"	"fee-y"

This lesson covers how letters map to sounds. Two closely linked topics have their own lessons: accents and nasal vowels (é, è, an, on, in, un) and liaison and silent letters (why final consonants often disappear). Study all three together for dictation and reading aloud.

French vowels are short, pure and crisp — never drawled into two sounds as English vowels often are.

Letter	Sound	Example (gloss)
a	"ah" as in father	chat (cat), ami (friend)
i / y	"ee" as in see	lit (bed), stylo (pen)
ou	"oo" as in food	vous (you), rouge (red)
u	rounded front vowel (no English match)	tu (you), rue (street)

The letters i and y make the same "ee" sound, so il (he) and the y in stylo rhyme with English see. The trickiest vowel is u, covered next, because English has no equivalent and it is constantly confused with ou.

Keep every vowel short and clean. English day glides from "eh" to "ee"; French é does not. Clipping vowels short instantly sounds more French.

This is the single most important vowel distinction in French, and it changes meaning.

• ou = the English "oo" in food, made at the back of the mouth: vous (you), nous (we), tout (everything).
• u = a tight rounded front vowel with no English equivalent: tu (you), rue (street), sur (on).

To make u, say the "ee" of see, then — without moving your tongue — round your lips as if to whistle. The tongue stays high and forward; only the lips change.

Only the vowel changes	Meaning
tu [u sound] vs tout [ou sound]	you vs everything
rue vs roue	street vs wheel
su vs sous	known vs under

Getting these two vowels wrong can turn one word into another, so examiners listen for the contrast in both dictation and reading aloud.

Two more vowels round out the set.

Letter	Sound	Example (gloss)
eu	rounded "uh", lips forward	deux (two), bleu (blue), peu (few)
e (no accent)	short "uh" (schwa), often silent	le (the), petit (small), je (I)

An unaccented e in a short word is a soft, weak "uh" — the vowel in le and je. In the middle or at the end of longer words it is often silent altogether: the final e of table and porte is not pronounced.

An e with an accent (é, è, ê) is a different, fuller vowel and is covered in the accents lesson. Only the plain, unaccented e is the weak "uh" sound here.

The eu sound (deux, jeu) is made with the tongue in the "ay" position but the lips rounded — another rounded front vowel, like a cousin of the tricky u.

Several French consonant spellings sound nothing like their English equivalents.

Grapheme	Sound	Example (gloss)
ch	"sh"	chat (cat), chien (dog)
ç / soft c (c before e, i, y)	"s"	ça (that), français (French), ici (here)
j / soft g (g before e, i, y)	"zh" as in measure	je (I), jour (day), manger (to eat)
gn	"ny" as in canyon	montagne (mountain), gagner (to win)
qu	plain "k"	qui (who), quatre (four)

Two of these depend on the following letter. A c before e, i, y softens to "s" (ceci, cinéma); elsewhere it is a hard "k" (car, couleur). The cédille ç forces the soft "s" before a, o, u (garçon), which is why français has one. Likewise g before e, i, y becomes "zh" (girafe, âge), but is a hard "g" elsewhere (gare, gros).

qu is almost always a simple k sound — there is no "kw" as in English quick. Quatre is "katr", not "kwatr".

A final set of correspondences catches out English speakers most often.

Grapheme	Sound	Example (gloss)
r	guttural, at the back of the throat	rouge (red), Paris, très (very)
h	silent	heure (hour), homme (man)
th	plain "t" (never "th")	thé (tea), théâtre (theatre)
-tion	"syon"	nation, attention
-ill- / -ille	"y" glide	fille (girl), famille (family)
-ail / -aill-	"eye" + y ("ah-y")	travail (work), travailler (to work)

The French r is made at the back of the throat, not with the tip of the tongue. The letter h is silent, so heure begins with a vowel sound; its effect on liaison is covered in the liaison lesson.

Exceptions to -ille: in ville (town), mille (thousand) and tranquille (quiet), the -ille is pronounced "eel" ([il]), not with a y-glide. These are common words worth memorising.

The ending -tion is "syon" (information, attention), and -ille usually gives the y-glide in fille ("fee-y") and famille.

1. Pronouncing u like ou

Tu and tout are different words. Make u with rounded lips and a high, forward tongue; make ou at the back of the mouth like English "oo". Blurring them changes the meaning.

2. Saying "ch" as in English "church"

French ch is always "sh" (chat = "sha"), never the "tch" of English church. Likewise j and soft g are "zh" (je, manger), not the hard English "j".

3. Reading "qu" as "kw"

qu is a plain "k" in French: qui is "kee", quand is "kon". There is no "w" glide.

4. Sounding the h or the th

h is silent (homme starts with the vowel), and th is just a "t" (thé = "tay"). Neither is pronounced as in English.

5. Forgetting the -ille exceptions

Most -ille words use a y-glide (fille, famille), but ville, mille and tranquille are pronounced "eel". Do not apply the y-glide to these.