Pronunciation(fr)

French vowels

French vowels
chat	as in "father"
nuit , pizza	as in "Lisa"
je	as in "petition"
homme, gros	(as in "or"
tu , salut	say "ee" while puckering your lips

To practice the French u, round your lips (pucker up, buttercup!) and say ee.

Accents

In French, an accent mark over a letter can make a new sound.

je (as in "petition")

journée (similar to "bay")

très (as in "bet")

If the last letter of a word is an e (without an accent!), it's usually silent.

French word endings

French word endings tend to be particularly difficult for beginners, largely because ending consonants are usually silent, but they do affect preceding vowel sounds.

Ending	Homophones	Example	English Approximation	IPA
-er	-é, -ée, -ées	parler	cliché	[e]
-et	-ets, -è, -ê	poulet	pou-LAY	[ε]
-it	-its, -i, -ie, -ies, -is, -iz	lit	LEE	[i]
-at	-ats, -as, -a	chat	SHAH	[ɑ]

The consonants C, R, F, and L are usually pronounced (you can use the mnemonic "CaReFuL"), with these main exceptions:

• An ending -r is silent in infinitives (e.g. parler - to speak).

• An ending -fs is silent (e.g. œufs - eggs).

• The L of an ending -il is usually silent (e.g. fusil - gun).

Words Beginning with H

The letter H is always mute (silent) in French, but when H starts a word, it can act as a consonant (aspirate) or vowel (non-aspirate). For example, the H in homme acts as a vowel. This means that "the man" must be written as l'homme.

Conversely, an aspirate H doesn't participate in elisions or liaisons. It's usually found at the beginning of loanwords from German or other languages. For instance, "the hero" is le héros.

The Mute E

When a consonant is followed by a mute -e, then the consonant should be pronounced. This is a way of distinguishing masculine and feminine forms verbally. Any unaccented -e at the end of a word is always mute except in a single-syllable word like le, which sounds somewhat like "luh".

The letter E often becomes mute in the middle of a word, especially if it would add a syllable. For instance, most Francophones pronounce appeler ("to call") as "app-LAY", not "app-pe-LAY".