France Pronunciation And Grammar

French pronunciation has been duping Anglophones since well before the Hundred Years’ War. A few tricks, though, can decode some of the intricacies of this absurdly non-phonetic Romance language.

Final consonants are often silent but are always pronounced when followed by an E (e.g., muet is mew-AY but muette is mew-ET). The S at the end of a plural noun is silent. The letter H is rarely aspirated, the French CH sounds like SH, and J is pronounced like the S in “pleasure.” Rs are perhaps the trickiest phoneme of anyone’s French-learning experience, as they originate in the throat, with the tongue arched and blocking the nasal passage. C sounds like K if it precedes A, O, or U; it sounds like S if it precedes E or I. A Ç always sounds like S. QU sounds like K if followed by A, E, or I; it sounds like the QU in “question” if followed by an O.

Vowels are pronounced precisely: A as the O in “mom”; E as in “help” (É becomes the A in “hay,” È the AI in “air”); I as the EE in “creep”; O as in “oh.” UI sounds like the word “whee.” U is a short, clipped OO sound; hold your lips as if you were about to say “ooh,” but say EE instead. OU sounds like OO. With few exceptions, all syllables in French words receive equal emphasis.

French is full of nasal sounds, and France is full of foreigners who exagerate them (think Chef Louis from Disney's The Little Mermaid —"HEE HEE HEE, HON HON HON.") Lest you start chasing a crab around the kitchen, try not to imitate Louis' accent. Instead, make sure never to make a "chhh" sound when speaking French (that's Hebrew), and practice pronouncing the phrase "un bon vin blanc," which contains five different common French nasal sounds.

Le (pronounced like “look” without the K) is the masculine singular definite article (the); la is the feminine. Both are abbreviated to l’ before a vowel, and les (pronounced “lay”) is the plural definite article for both genders. Un (whose pronunciation has no English approximation) is the masculine indefinite article, une its feminine (as in “moon” without the M), and des (like “day”) its plural. Where a noun or adjective can take masculine and feminine forms, the masculine is listed first and the feminine in parentheses; often the feminine form consists of an additional “e” on the end of the word—e.g., étudiant(e). In general, the plural is formed by adding an “s” to the singular form; this “s,” like most final consonants, is silent unless followed by a vowel, in which case it is pronounced as a “z” at the beginning of the next word (e.g., l’énfant is lehn-fohn but les enfants is lay zohn-fohn). Tu is the familiar form of second-person address, and vous serves as both the plural and the formal singular forms. Vous should always be used to address strangers, authority figures, and older people; tu is traditionally used only for close friends and family, although it is now frequently used among those kooky young folk.