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French Pronunciation Guide

1. French pronunciation rules differ from English in several key ways. Stress always falls on the final syllable and final letters are often silent. 2. Nasal sounds are formed by vowels followed by n or m, but n or m are not pronounced on their own or before consonants. 3. Liaison and elision rules affect pronunciation when words are joined.

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389 views1 page

French Pronunciation Guide

1. French pronunciation rules differ from English in several key ways. Stress always falls on the final syllable and final letters are often silent. 2. Nasal sounds are formed by vowels followed by n or m, but n or m are not pronounced on their own or before consonants. 3. Liaison and elision rules affect pronunciation when words are joined.

Uploaded by

lethanhvan186
Copyright
© Attribution Non-Commercial (BY-NC)
We take content rights seriously. If you suspect this is your content, claim it here.
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Basic French pronunciation rules

Here we do not intend to list all French pronunciation rules, we collected only those rules which are significantly different to English ones and therefore when you use Easy-to-Learn French Phrases they can be very helpful to understand why "this word" is pronounced "this way". 1. Stress in French words always falls on the last pronounced syllable 2. The final letter "e" is normally not pronounced, the preceding consonant is pronounced. 3. Final consonants are usually silent , except of "c", "f" and "l" which are generally pronounced. As in English, in plural most French words add an "s", however, the last "s" in a word is not pronounced. Example: enfant and its plural form enfants are pronounced the same way. There are exceptions like fils, gaz, ouest, sud, autobus and others. See also liaison rules when some final consonants become sounded. 4. "" is always pronounced as /s/ (Garon, leon, faon) 5. Letter "h" is never pronounced 6. Liaison rules: when a French word ends with a consonant and the next begins with a vowel or a silent "h" the final consonant joins the following vowel to form a complete syllable. The pronunciation in this situation can be different: consonants "s" and "x" are pronounced as /z/ (lesenfants, deuxenfants), "f" is pronounced as /v/, "d" as /t/. 7. Elision rules: French letters "a" and "e" in the words le, la, ce, je, me, te, se, de, ne, que is dropped when the word that follows them begins with a vowel or silent "h". (l'enfant) 8. Nasal sounds. They are indicated by vowel + "n" or "m", where vowel becomes nasal and "n" or "m" is not pronounced. Please note that only when used alone (such as in words un, en, ton) or followed by a consonant (except another "n" or "m"), vowels together with "n" or "m" will form a nasal sound. If a consonant is followed by a vowel, both vowel and consonant will be pronounced (une) 9. There are six masculine French adjectives and three feminine possessive adjectives that change their formif they precede a word beginning with a vowel or silent "h". beau - bel (beautiful) (un beau garon - un bel homme) ce - cet (this, that) (ce garon - cet enfant) fou - fol (mad) (un fou rire - un fol espoir, un fol appel) mou - mol (soft) (un mou matelas - un mol oreiller) nouveau - nouvel (new) (le Nouveau Monde - le Nouvel An) vieux - vieil (old) (un vieux camarade - un vieil ami) French feminine possessive adjectives ma, ta, sa (my, your, her) change to the masculine form mon, ton, son (ma maison - mon cole; ta vie - ton exprience; sa vie - son uvre)

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