In this lesson, we cover the basics of alphabet and pronunciation in French.
Luckily, French uses the Latin letters used in English with only a few differences in pronunciation. French is generally not a phonetic language, meaning that what you read is not always what you hear. However, there are some rules that can help you guess the correct pronunciation with a good success rate.
There are 26 letters (six vowels and 20 consonants) in the French alphabet, which are identical to the letters in the English alphabet except in their pronunciation.
Start with the French alphabet in the table below, and use your Anki cards to anchor what you learned via spaced-repetition exercises.
| French Letter | English Pronunciation | Notes | |
| A | a | ah | like “a” in “father” |
| B | b | be | equivalent to English “b” |
| C | c | se | sounds like English “k,” except: 1. before “e,” “i,” or “y,” it sounds like “s” 2. if written with a cedilla “ç,” it sounds like “s” 3. before “h,” “ch” sounds like “sh” in “sheep” |
| D | d | de | equivalent to English “d” |
| E | e | ə | like “u” in “burn” or “i” in “girl,” but much shorter |
| F | f | ef | equivalent to English “f” |
| G | g | je | sounds like “g” in “gab,” and like “j” in “job” only before “e,” “i,” or “y” |
| H | h | ash | silent letter like “h” in “hour” |
| I | i | ee | like “ee” in “see” or “i” in “marine” |
| J | j | jee | equivalent to English “j” |
| K | k | ka | equivalent to English “k” |
| L | l | el | equivalent to English “l,” but softer |
| M | m | em | equivalent to English “m” |
| N | n | en | equivalent to English “n” |
| O | o | o | equivalent to English “o” but shorter |
| P | p | pe | equivalent to English “p” |
| Q | q | kµ | almost always followed by a mute “u” to form “qu” which sounds like “k,” e.g., “qui,” pronounced “kee” |
| R | r | eя | equivalent to English “r” but rolled using the back of the tongue near the throat to form the distinctive French “r” sound |
| S | s | es | can sound like English “s” or “z” |
| T | t | te | like “t” in “table” but strongly pronounced |
| U | u | µ | This sound does not exist in English. Make your lips round as if you want to say “o” and say “ee” instead |
| V | v | ve | equivalent to English “v” |
| W | w | dooblə ve | like “w” in “week” or “v” in “video,” depending on the origin of the borrowed word |
| X | x | eeks | like “x” in “fix” or “x” in “exact,” and in rare cases, like “s” in “sea” |
| Y | y | ee gяek | pronounced exactly like French “i” when on its own or before a consonant and like “y” in “you” when it is in front of a vowel |
| Z | z | zed | equivalent to English “z” |
Notes
One main challenge in French is mastering the different vowel sounds. Some of these vowels are compound vowels and do not have equivalent sounds in English.
Another challenge is the silent consonant(s) at the end of most French words. This can be confusing to French learners in the beginning. We will discuss some general rules that will help us correctly guess the pronunciation in most cases.
Throughout the lessons, we will use slash marks “/” to mark the pronunciation of some words. We will highlight the stressed syllable in bold in case of multi-syllable words, e.g., “parler” /paя-le/ (to speak).
Other lessons in Level I:
