French 1.1.1. Vowels

The letters “a,” “u,” “o,” “e,” “i,” and “y” are the vowel letters in French. There are two types of vowels in French: oral vowels and nasal vowels.

Both oral and nasal vowels can have a combination of vowel letters.

1. Oral Vowels

The vowels “a,” “u,” and “o” are hard vowels, whereas “e,” “i,” and “y” are soft vowels. When soft vowels come after letters like “c” and “g,” they dictate the pronunciation of that letter to be hard or soft. We will discuss this in detail in the next section on consonants.

The six vowel letters in French have a slightly different pronunciation in French than in English. Notice that we use different symbols from the standard International Phonetic Alphabet (IPA) for simplicity.

Let us start with the main six vowels in French:

Open “o” Sound vs. Closed “o” Sound

The letter “o” has a closed sound and open sound. The closed “o” sound is often used if:

1. the “o” is the final sound of a word, e.g., “trop” /tяo/ (too much);

2. the “o” is followed by a “z” sound, e.g., “rose” /яoz/ (pink); or

3. the “o” has a circumflex, e.g., “hôpital” /o-pee-tal/ (hospital).

Otherwise, the open short sound is used. The open sound is similar to the “o” in “cop” but shorter, e.g., “corps” /koя/ (body).

Open “e” Sound vs. Closed “e” Sound vs. Schwa Sound

The letter “e” can have one of three sounds:

– Schwa sound

This sound is similar to the English schwa[1] but more rounded. This sound is often encountered at the end of single-syllable words, such as “le” /lə/ (the), “te” /tə/ (you), etc. In multi-syllable words, the schwa pronunciation is sometimes optional and can be omitted. For example, “devoirs” /d(ə)v-waя/ (homework), “samedi” /sam(ə)-dee/ (Saturday), “acheter” /a-sh(ə)-te/ (to buy), etc.

– Closed sound

The closed “e” sound is similar to the “ay” sound in “say” but without the final “y” sound. This sound is often encountered when the syllable sound ends in a vowel. For example, the last syllable in the verb “aller” /a-le/ (to go) has the sound “le,” which end in a vowel sound even though the spelling of the syllable ends in the consonant “r.” If the “e” has an acute accent, it is also pronounced with a closed “e” sound. For example, “clé” /kle/ (key), “désolé” /de-zo-le/ (sorry), etc.

– Open sound

The open “e” sound is similar to the “e” in “bed” or “set.” This sound is often encountered when the syllable ends in a consonant sound, e.g., “sept” /set/ (seven), “elle” /el/ (she), etc. If the “e” has a grave accent or a circumflex, it is pronounced with an open “e” sound, e.g., “mère” /meя/ (mother), “prêt” /pяe/ (ready), etc. The circumflex often indicates that the original word had an “s” in the source language that was later dropped as the language developed.

[1] A schwa sound in English is the relaxed unstressed vowel sound. We encounter this sound in English in some pronunciations, such as “a” in “about” or “e” in “taken.”

Compound Vowels

In addition to the main six vowels, there are some compound vowel sounds in French. Compound vowel sounds result from different combinations of the six vowels. Some are familiar and easy to grasp, such as:

On the other hand, the following French compound vowels are tricky and are often confusing to English learners:

Ligature, “œ”

Notice that when the “o” and “e” are combined into one symbol, called a ligature, “œ,” they form a single sound. As we have seen, when followed by “u,” the combination “œu” has a sound identical to “eu.” This is the most common sound of the ligature “œ” in French. Here are four cases that produce the three possible sounds of the ligature “œ” in French:

Dieresis

Finally, there is the dieresis, which can be found on “e,” “i,” or “u.” It is used on the second vowel of a two-vowel combination. The dieresis denotes that the two vowels must be pronounced separately. For example, “naïve” is pronounced /na-eev/, not /nev/, despite the “ai” combination.

2. Nasal Vowels

A nasal pronunciation occurs in French often when a vowel precedes an “n” or “m,” but not always. The nasal sound occurs when the “n” or “m” preceded by a vowel is at the end of a word or anywhere else in the word but followed by a consonant. To summarize:

For example, the “n” in “un” (a/an – masculine) and “anglais” (English) is nasal. However, the “n” in “une” (a/an – feminine) and “reine” (queen) is not nasal.

Nasal “a,” Nasal “i,” &Nasal “o”

The three nasal vowel sounds in French are: nasal “a,” nasal “i,” and nasal “o.” We refer to these three sounds throughout the book here using the symbols: “ã,” “ĩ,” and “õ.” The three sounds occur in the following cases:

– The nasal sound “õ” occurs when “o” is followed by “n” or “m,” i.e., “on” or “om.”

– The nasal sound “ã” occurs when “a,” “e,” or “ao” is followed by “n” or “m,” i.e., “an,” “am,” “en,” “em,” “aon,” or “aom.”

– The nasal sound “ĩ” occurs when “i,” “u,” “y,” “ai,” “ei,” or “ie” is followed by “n” or “m,” e.g., “in,” “im,” “un,” “um,” “yn,” “ym,” “ain,” “aim,” “ein,” “eim,” “ien,” or “iem.”

Here are some examples of words that contain each of the three nasal sounds:

In the past, there used to be a distinction between the nasal sound from the combination “un” or “um” and the rest of nasal “ĩ” sounds. This is characterized by a fourth distinct nasal sound “œ̃.” However, this sound is no longer in use in much of France and has assimilated into the nasal “ĩ” sound.

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