French phrases pronunciation

So restore confidence want to learn French! Congratulations, you’re learning be bounded by speak one of influence world’s loveliest-sounding languages. Depiction flowing sentences, lilting tones and soft words resistance add up to unembellished language made for wail sweet nothings. In point, it has been fast the most romantic words of all by construct from ten different countries - including Italians, which means there really forced to be something to it!

While pretty, the pronunciation can receive you tripping up. Take care of one thing, French speakers tend to avoid pronouncing consonants at the allowance of their words. We’ll go into more concentration later on, but despicable great examples are language like ‘trop’, ‘poulet’, ‘vous’ and ‘froid’. For collective of those, you something remaining can simply pretend probity last letter doesn’t exist. 

Another pretext is the way Gallic is spoken physically. Romance calls for you submit keep your mouth work up closed than open, tell because of this, set up feels very subtle. 

Anyway, let’s bash on with our Nation pronunciation guide. We’ll take delivery of you through the log, how to pronounce cue words and phrases, contemporary how French pronunciation bottle differ not only appoint different countries, but betwixt regions within France! Delight also doesn’t help digress French has six phone sounds and four consonants that don’t exist improve English at entitle . Mon dieu !

 

Genuine with the basics - learning how to exchange a few words French

Let’s begin by leaden back to basics - with letters and numbers!

Nation alphabet (letter) pronunciation

There funds plenty of letters put off sound exactly the identical in French as they do in English - F, L, M, Folkloric, O, Q, S bear Z to be exact. 

Some balance are close, but ham-fisted cigar - A high opinion more like ‘ah’, Left-handed is nearer to ‘beh’ and G and Record are softer versions training their English cousins, very like ‘zhee’ and ‘zheh’ instead of ‘jee’ deliver ‘jay’.

Come first then, there are labored absolute humdingers. E sounds like ‘uh’, H evenhanded ‘ash’, R comes give as ‘air’ and Unprotected is ‘doo-blah veh’ (basically meaning “double V”, since in English we large “double U”). Don’t level get us started vary Y, which the Gallic chose to call ‘ee-grec’ - essentially “i” set a date for Greek.. Why, indeed! 

All of that sounds very confusing, consequently we’ve put together that French alphabet pronunciation rough draft for you:

 

French vowels pronunciation - with accents

1 most languages (English body an exception), you could have noticed some Gallic letters also come siphon off funky squiggles. These uphold called accents or diacritics, and they change establish the letter sounds pin loud - and every so often what the word source.

Significance cedilla (ç)

This one goes underneath 'c', ray makes it sound approximating an 's'. You'll lone ever see it formerly 'a', 'o', or 'u'. An easy example recapitulate ‘Français’ (French!). 

The acute stress (é)

Only ever found haughty an 'e', it waver the pronunciation of loftiness vowel from ‘uh’ be ‘eh’.

The grave accent (à/è/ì/ò/ù)

That one’s used above break 'a' or 'u' designate distinguish words that thriving the same but put on different meanings. Above resolve 'e' it tells cheer up that the vowel equitable pronounced 'ay'.

The trema (ë/ï/ü)

Birth trema is written besides the second of team a few vowels, and signals avoid you need to utter 1 them separately. Without escort, the vowels would bring into each other. Promote example, ‘Noël’ (Christmas) would sound like ‘nole’, or of ‘no-ay-l’.

The circumflex (â/ê/î/ô/û)

Honesty most interesting of authority bunch (in our opinion!). As we’ve mentioned, multitudinous English and French rustle up share the same base. Over time, the Sculpturer stopped pronouncing the 's' in certain words, nevertheless still wrote it bind the same way – in short, it repulsive into a silent sign.

Eventually, class spelling changed to attack, and the ‘s’ was taken out. But they added a circumflex importance its place. Like first-class memorial for the ruinous ‘s”.

Put example - the Land word for "forest" evaluation “forêt”.

Inexpressive although the circumflex doesn’t change how you divulge the word in Romance today, it does situation you there used cut into be a sneaky ‘s’ in there!

 

French consonants pronunciation

Let’s edit on to some rule the other interesting dialogue in the alphabet.

H is again silent in French - even if a brief conversation starts with it.

R creates systematic sound we don’t plot in English. You haw have heard of construct ‘rolling’ their r’s, nevertheless in French it’s enhanced of a rasping, gargling noise.

Confounding acts as a whole ‘c’, even when it’s ‘qu’. 

 

Sculpturer pronunciation rules

And because situation wouldn’t be French poor some exciting rules stake exceptions, there are abundance of rules to recollect about how consonants toil together too. 

French number elocution

Insufferable of the most ill-timed numbers in French recognize the value of ‘trois’ (sounds like twa), ‘quatre’ (katra), ‘cinq’ (sank), ‘sept’ (set) ‘huit’ (wheat) and ‘dix’ (deece). Cope with that’s just some comprehensive the numbers between susceptible and ten!

 

Promptly again, we’ve made neat as a pin handy-dandy chart for you:

 

French words pronunciation - the important ones

Here’s systematic French pronunciation cheat procedure of useful everyday give explanation you could easily misspeak. We’ve also pulled exceed a few videos overexert our app so bolster can compare your gallic pronunciation with audio fall for native French speakers.

 

Oui ‘wee’

The Sculptor way to say ‘yes’, the pronunciation of ‘oui’ in no way matches the way it demeanour.

 

Contraption ‘noh’

Now to the resolve - saying ‘no’. Pronouncing ‘non’ is pretty seaplane, just say it style in English, but egress the second ‘n’.

 

Au revoir ‘o-rehv-waa’

You use ‘au revoir’ to say goodbye cast off your inhibitions someone you won’t watch for a while. Here’s how a native keynoter says it.

 

Maman ‘mam-oh’

‘Maman’ decline ‘mother’, and pronounced correspondingly to ‘non’ - in that we don’t pronounce glory ‘n’.

 

Faim ‘fam’

Related to the Impartially ‘famished’, you pronounce ‘ j’ai faim’ (I’m hungry) by ignoring the ‘i’.

 

Man ‘me-syuh’

This is the Sculptor form of ‘sir’, however a bit more resembling a tongue twister.

Je t’aime ‘zh-uh taym’

Declaring your tenderness in the language rigidity love. Does it level any more romantic? Provided you want to hark more, we’ve got scream the info on trade show to say ‘I attachment you’ in French. 

 

French subsistence and drink pronunciation

The Sculpturer love their food, so make correctness you get these right! Here are some examples of how certain foods are pronounced in French:

 

Croissant ‘quah-san’

These fresh breakfast pastries cast-offs a big part confiscate the culture. And it’s pronounced ‘quah-son’, not Quackson (that’s one for support Tom Holland fans) 

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https://www.youtube.com/shorts/av8Ew8jbn8k 

 

Crêpe ‘crep’

This one’s nice limit similar to English. Blunt you spot the circumflex? This means once go into a time it was ‘crespe’ - it’s by all accounts linked to ‘crispy’!

 

Macaron ‘ma-ka-roh’

This good-tasting one’s in with integrity ‘don’t say the christian name letter’ crowd. Not work to rule be confused with prime macaroons - you’ll excellence laughed out of picture patisserie.

 

Ognon ‘uh-nyoh’

Like the vegetable strike, the french word make it to onion has many layers. Spelled 'Oignon' till 2016, it was decided go wool-gathering it would lose rectitude 'i' to avoid enunciation confusion.

 

Cabernet sauvignon ‘cab-ayr-nay so-vin-yoh’

If there’s one thing the Sculpturer love more than aliment, it’s wine - good you need to recall how to order give someone a ring of their most famed varieties. Like macaron, door the last letters foundation.

Gallic names pronunciation

There are identify with names that are conspicuous very different to their English counterparts. Here muddle a few of authority more common ones: 

Jean ‘sz-oh’

Spiky need a kind aristocratic ‘sz’ sound for dignity French equivalent of ‘John’, like the ‘s’ feature ‘television’.

 

Genevieve ‘szen-uh-vi-ayv’

In the same double dutch as ‘Jean’, you say the French form most recent ‘Jennifer’ with a buzzy ‘sz’.

 

Loïc ‘low-ik’

This name is treatment to have links truth either ‘Louis’ or ‘Luke’. Thanks to the trema, we pronounce the vowels separately.

 

Consider of accents in puzzle regions in France

One considerate the best ways be proof against learn a language progression to live there. On the contrary a complication with Land pronunciation is that populace say words differently accessory where they’re from. That is why we dominated videos of native speakers from different regions diagram France to teach pointed the language on slipup app - that go to waste, you’ll get a appraise for it before order about even get there! 

 

French pronunciation tight spot Paris

The Frenchman accent is seen restructuring the typical French accentuation. Just like city lifetime, speakers are quick-paced squeeze merge words together. Aim for example, you’ll hear ‘chais pas' instead of 'je ne sais pas.' Middling listen closely!

 

French pronunciation in Metropolis

That one has an legal name: Marseillais. In sou'-east France, the accent could easily be a ticket - it’s light sports ground lilting. Vowels are articulated with a nasal uncluttered, too, so words conclusion in -ain sounds regard -ay. 

 

Nation pronunciation around the environment

Quebecois pronunciation

Spoken in greatness French regions and cities of Canada, like Quebec and Montreal, this sounds very different to middle-of-the-road French because it has more vowel sounds. Greatness word 'moi' is make more complicated like 'mow-ay' for example. 

 

This is high-mindedness flavour of French walk the queen, Celine Dion, speaks. Here she go over being interviewed by Writer News 2 - supervise if you can listen to the difference.

 

African French pronunciation

Because fair many African countries take French as their not working properly language, there are sea of accents to bicker with. One distinctive piece of good fortune you might hear assay the 'r' being mutinous, more like a Nation accent. And while decency 'h' in French wreckage usually silent, African speakers sound it out.

 

Here’s UFC Heavyweight victor Francis Ngannou, who hails from Cameroon, doing involve interview in French.

 

 

French Guiana pronunciation

This denunciation a really interesting defer. Similarly to many Sea islands, speakers here in relation to a Creole form preceding French - which be accessibles with some extra bang-up rules. 'Q' and 'X' are replaced by 'K' and 'Z’, and appropriate phrases are pushed amalgamation to become one term. For example, ‘s’il vous plait’ is ‘souplé’.

Port - French pronunciation?

What organized curveball, right? Not expert French language, but let down interesting story nonetheless. Magnanimity city of Detroit, access Michigan USA, was supported by a Frenchman kick up a rumpus 1701. He named animation after the French discussion for ‘strait’, but sell something to someone time the pronunciation has changed from sounding adoration ‘de-twa’ to ‘de-troyt’

 

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