L’alphabet: THE ALPHABET

In French, we have the same alphabetic letters as in English. But the pronunciation of many of the letters differs from it. In other words, the French alphabet is similar to the English alphabet. It consists of 26 letters. In this post, we will discuss differences so that you can master the French alphabet and French pronunciation quickly and easily.

Why Learn the French Alphabet?

Well, it is very basic and the very first step to French fluency. To start with any language you must be familiar with the basic letters and countings in that particular language. There are various benefits to familarise yourself with these letters but what are they? Let us see in the following list:

• You can improve your French accent
• You can spell French words easier
• You’ll be confident enough about being correct with the pronunciation

French Characters/Letters:

Characters	Pronunciation	Characters	Pronunciation
A	Aa	N	en
B	bay	O	ooh
C	say	P	pay
D	day	Q	queue
E	euh	R	air
F	eff	S	ess
G	jhay	T	tay
H	aash	U	oo
I	ee	V	vay
J	ghee	W	duble-way
K	kah	X	eeks
L	elle	Y	ee-grehk
M	emm	Z	zed

For Example:

Let us make it more clear to understand the letters and make it easy to remember. See the examples below to memorize it permanently. I am sure you will never going to forget these words to recall it at any given point.

Example Description with Pronunciation	Letter Sounds	French Character
The sound of “a” in the word “father”	Aa	A
The sound of “b” in the word “bayleaf”	bay	B
The sound of “c” in the word “center” (the letter “c” is pronounced as “say” when it is before the letters- {e, i} The sound of “c” in the word “cat” (the letter “c” is also pronounced as “kah” when it is before the letters-{a,o,u}	say kah	C
The sound of “d” in the word “dog”	deh	D
The sound of “u” in the word “burp” is more nearly to the french alphabet “e”	euh	E
The sound of “f” in the word “fog”	eff	F
The sound of “s” in the word “measure” (the letter “g” is pronounced as “jeuh” when it comes before- {e, i} The sound of “g” in the word “get” (the letter “g” is also pronounced as “geh” when it comes before the letter- {a, o, u}	jeuh	G
The sound of “h” is silent in 99% case.		H
The sound of “ea” in the word “team”	ee	I
The sound of “s” in the word “measure”	jheh	J
The sound of “k” in the word “kite”	kah	K
The sound of “el” in the word “elle”	el	L
The sounds of m, n & o are the same as in English	em, en, oh	M, N, O
The sound of “p” in the word “pen”	pe	P
The sound of “q” is the same as in English (but it is spoken softer)	queue	Q
The sound of “air” in word “chair”	air	R
The sound of “z” in the word “amazing”	ezh	S
The sound of “ta” in the word “tape”	tay	T
The sounds of u, v, w are the same as in English	eu, we, w	U, V, W
The sound of “cks” in the word “socks”	iks	X
The sound of “ea” in the word “leak” along with the sound of “grek”	egrek	Y
The sound of “z” in the word “zebra”	zed	Z

Final Consonants

In French, certain consonants are silent when they are the final OR last letter of a word. For example: The letter p (as in ‘coup’), the letter s (as in ‘héros’), t (as in ‘chat’), d (as in ‘marchand’), and x (as in ‘paresseux’), are generally not pronounced at the end of a word. They are pronounced if there is an “e” letter after (‘coupe’, ‘chatte’, ‘marchande’, etc.)

Now, you can practice speaking the vocabulary to know if you can speak some French words or not. If you are unable to speak please give more time to the French alphabet.

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