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French is based on the Latin alphabet (also called the Roman alphabet), and there are 26 letters. Originally there were 25 letters, with 'W' being added by the mid-nineteenth century. Unlike the English, who call it a "double-u," the French use "double-v" and pronounce it doo-bluh-vay after the 'V' which is pronounced (vay). During the period from Old French to Modern French, the letter 'K' was added. These two letters are used mostly with adopted foreign words. The French alphabet used today is less than 200 years old.

The twenty-six letters are parted into :

20 Consonants (Consonnes): B C D F G H J K L M N P Q R S T V W X Z
6 Vowels (Voyelles): A E I O U Y

In addition, French uses several accents: grave accents (à, è, and ù) and acute accents (é). A circumflex applies to all vowels, except Y (considered as a vowel): â, ê, î, ô, û. A tréma (French for dieresis) is also applied: ë, ï, ü, ÿ. Two combined letters (called orthographic ligatures) are used: æ and œ. Finally, a cedilla is used on the c to make it sound like an English s: ç.

Letters and examples


Letter	Name in French	Pronunciation
Aa	/a/ (ah)	like a in father
Bb	/be/ (bay)	like b in maybe
Cc	/se/ (say)	before e and i: like c in center before a, o, or u: like c in cat
Dd	/de/ (day)	like d in dog
Ee	/ə/ (uh)	approximately like u in burp
Ff	/ɛf/ (ehf)	like f in fog
Gg	/ʒe/ (zhay)	before e and i: like s in measure before a, o, or u: like g in get
Hh	/aʃ/ (ahsh)	See Supplementary Notes below: never pronounced
Ii	/i/ (ee)	like ea in team
Jj	/ʒi/ (zhee)	like s in measure
Kk	/ka/ (kah)	like k in kite
Ll	/ɛl/ (ehl)	like l in lemon
Mm	/ɛm/ (ehm)	like m in minute
Nn	/ɛn/ (ehn)	like n in note
Oo	/o/ (oh)	closed: approximately like u in nut open: like o in nose
Pp	/pe/ (pay)	like p in pen
Qq	/ky/ (kew)	like k in kite
Rr	/ɛʁ/ (ehr)	force air through the back of your throat near the position of gargling, but sounding soft
Ss	/ɛs/ (ehs)	like s in sister at beginning of word or with two s's or like z in amazing if only one s
Tt	/te/ (tay)	like t in top
Uu	/y/ (ew)	say the English letter e, but make your lips say oo
Vv	/ve/ (vay)	like v in violin
Ww	/dubləve/ (doo-bluh-vay)	depending on the derivation of the word, like v as in violin, or w in water
Xx	/iks/ (eeks)	either /ks/ in socks, or /gz/ in exit
Yy	/igʁɛk/ (ee-grehk)	like ea in leak
Zz	/zɛd/ (zehd)	like z in zebra

Supplementary orthography · Notes

Final consonants

In French, certain consonants are silent when they are the final letter of a word. The letters p (as in coup (blow, shock) /ku/ (koo)), s (as in héros (hero) /e.ʁɔ/ (ay-roh)), t (as in chat (cat) /ʃa/ (shah)), d (as in marchand (shopkeeper) /maʁ.ʃɑ̃/ (mahr-shah⁽ⁿ⁾)), and x (as in paresseux (lazy, sloth) /pa.ʁɛ.sø/ (pah-reh-sew)), are generally not pronounced at the end of a word. They are pronounced if there is an e letter after it (coupe (bowl, goblet) /kup/ (koop), chatte (she-cat) /ʃat/ (shaht), marchande (female shopkeeper) /maʁ.ʃɑ̃d/ (mahr-shah⁽ⁿ⁾d)).

Dental consonants

The letters d, l, n, s, t and z are pronounced with the tip of the tongue against the upper teeth and the middle of the tongue against the roof of the mouth. In English, one would pronounce these letters with the tip of the tongue at the roof of one's mouth. It is very difficult to pronounce a word like voudrais /vud.ʁɛ/ properly with the d formed in the English manner.

b and p

Unlike English, when you pronounce the letters b and p in French, little to no air should come out of your mouth. In terms of phonetics, the difference in the French b and p and their English counterparts is one of aspiration. Fortunately, in English both aspirated and unaspirated variants (allophones) exist, but only in specific environments. If you're a native speaker, say the word pit and then the word spit out loud. Did you notice the extra puff of air in the first word that doesn't come with the second? The p in 'pit' is aspirated ([pʰ]); the p in 'spit' is not (like the p in any position in French).

q

The letter 'q' is always followed by a 'u'. There are only two exceptions, 'cinq' (five) and 'coq' (rooster).

r

A final 'r' after 'e' is generally mute, but it is pronounced on words of one syllable 'fer' (iron), 'mer' (sea) and 'hier' (yesterday).

Aspirated and non-aspirated h

In French, the letter h can be aspirated (h aspiré), or not aspirated (h non aspiré), depending on which language the word was borrowed from. The h is never pronounced, whether it is aspirated or not aspirated.

For example, the word héros /e.ʁɔ/ has an aspirated h. When a definite article (le, la, l', les) is placed before it, the result is le héros, and both words must be pronounced separately. However, the feminine form of héros, héroïne /eʁɔin/ is a non-aspirated h. Therefore, when you put a definite article in front of it, it becomes l'héroïne, and is pronounced as one word.

The only way to tell if the h at the beginning of a word is aspirated is to look it up in the dictionary. Some dictionaries will place an asterisk (*) in front of the entry word in the French-English H section if the h is aspirated. Other dictionaries will include it in the pronunciation guide after the key word by placing an apostrophe ( ' ) before the pronunciation. In short, the words must be memorized.

Here is a table of some basic h words that are aspirated and not aspirated:

(upload audio)
aspirated	non-aspirated
héros, hero (le héros)	héroïne, heroine (l'héroïne)
haïr, to hate (je hais)	habiter, to live (j'habite)
huit, eight (le huit novembre)	harmonie, harmony (l'harmonie)

Supplementary orthography · Punctuation · La ponctuation


&	esperluette, et commercial	,	virgule	{ }	accolades	~	tilde
'	apostrophe	=	égal	%	pourcent	@	arobase, a commercial, arobe
*	astérisque	$	dollar	.	point
« »	guillemets	!	point d'exclamation	+	plus
\	barre oblique inverse	>	supérieur à	#	dièse
[ ]	crochets	<	inférieur à	?	point d'interrogation
:	deux points	-	moins, tiret, trait d'union	_	soulignement
;	point virgule	( )	parenthèses	/	barre oblique

The punctuation symbols in French operates very similarly to English with the same meaning. The only punctuation symbol not present in French would be the quotation marks; these are replaced by the guillemets shown in the table above. For speech in fiction, no quotation marks are used. The two stroke punctuation marks (such as ;, :, ?, !) may require a non-breaking space before or after the mark in question.

Supplementary orthography · Diacritics

Five different kinds of accent marks are used in written French. In many cases, an accent changes the sound of the letter to which it is added. In others, the accent has no effect on pronunciation. Accents in French never indicate stress (which always falls on the last syllable). Accentuated letters are usually never followed by a double consonant (except châssis for instance); moreover on e accent becomes useless because a following double consonant changes its pronunciation (e.g.: jeter ([ə],throw) but je jette (pronounced è, I throw). The following table lists every French accent mark and the letters with which it can be combined:

(upload audio)
Accent	Letters used	Examples
acute accent (accent aigu)	é	éléphant /e.le.fɑ̃/
grave accent (accent grave)	è, à, ù	fièvre /fjɛvʁ/, là /la/, où /u/
circumflex (accent circonflexe)	â, ê, î, ô, û	gâteau /ɡa.tɔ/, être /ɛtʁ/, île /il/, chômage /ʃɔ.maʒ/, dû /dy/
diaeresis (tréma)	ë, ï, ü, ÿ	Noël /nɔ.ɛl/, maïs /ma.is/, aigüe /e.ɡy/
cedilla (cédille)	ç	français /fʁɑ̃.sɛ/

Note that the letter ÿ is only used in very rare words, mostly old town names like L'Haÿ-Les-Roses, a Paris surburb or Aÿ in Champagne region. This letter is pronounced like ï.

Note also that as of the spelling reform of 1990, the diaresis indicating gu is not a digraph on words finishing in guë and is now placed on the u in standard (académie française) French: aigüe and not aiguë; cigüe and not ciguë; ambigüe and not ambiguë. Since this reform is relatively recent and mostly unknown to laypeople, the two spellings can be used interchangeably.

Acute accent · Accent aigu

The acute accent is the most common accent used in written French. It is only used with the letter e and is always pronounced /e/ (ay).

One use of the accent aigu is to form the past participle of regular -er verbs.

(upload audio)
Infinitive	Past participle
aimer (to love)	aimé (loved)
regarder (to watch)	regardé (watched)

Grave accent · Accent grave

à and ù

In the case of the letters à and ù, the grave accent is used to graphically distinguish one word from another.

(upload audio)
Without accent grave	With accent grave
a (3rd pers. sing of avoir, to have)	à (preposition, to, at, etc.)
la (definite article for feminine nouns)	là (there)
ou (conjunction, or)	où (where)

è

Unlike à and ù, è is not used to distinguish words from one another. The è is used for pronunciation. In careful speech, an unaccented e is pronounced like an a on the end of a word in English /ə/, as in "Angela", and in rapid speech is sometimes not pronounced at all. The è is pronounced like the letter e in pet.

Circumflex accent · Accent circonflexe

This accent is often called a 'hat' in language and mathematics, and usually indicates the disappearance of the old-French s after the vowel wearing it (the hat) but this s can still be found in a noun or a verb of the same lexical family. Examples are: hospital --> hôpital but hospitalité, maistre --> maître, gâteau from old french gastel, ê is pronounced like è: Fenestre --> fenêtre but défenestrer, forest --> forêt but forestier.

Circumflex accent may be used to have closed-o (la Drôme (French department), un dôme... ô is pronounced [o] like in château, without this accent it would be said like the english word hot ; whereas this pronunciation is not really applied in the south of France.)

In the past participle of devoir (must), dû a circumflex accent is written to distinguish it from the article du.

According to the spelling reform of 1990 some circumflex accents are no longer compulsory (maître --> maitre, boîte --> boite...)

Cedilla · Cédille

The cedilla is used only with the letter c, and is said to make the c soft, making it equivalent to the English and French s.

garçon

Supplementary exercises

ExercisePronouncing b and p

Get a loose piece of printer paper or notebook paper.
Hold the piece of paper about one inch (or a couple of centimeters) in front of your face.
Say the words baby, and puppy like you normally would in English. Notice how the paper moved when you said the 'b' and the 'p' respectively.
Now, without making the piece of paper move, say the words belle (the feminine form of beautiful in French, pronounced like the English 'bell.'), and papa (the French equivalent of "Dad").

If the paper moved, your pronunciation is slightly off. Concentrate, and try it again.
If the paper didn't move, congratulations! You pronounced the words correctly!

ExerciseFinding h words

Grab a French-English dictionary and find at least ten aspirated h words, and ten non-aspirated h words
On a piece of paper, write down the words you find in two columns
Look at it every day and memorize the columns

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