French Pronunciation for Speakers of English

Quick Answer

French and English share the same alphabet. However, French also has a few diacritical marks, often referred to as accents. In this article, you will learn the letters of the French alphabet and how to pronounce them!

Questions This Article Answers

How many letters are there in French?

What's the French alphabet?

How do you pronounce the letters with accents in French?

The Alphabet in French

The table below shows the letters of the French alphabet. It includes the same 26 letters found in the English alphabet! The FPA transcription shows how each letter is pronounced when reciting the alphabet in French.

What's the FPA?

The FPA (French Phonetic Alphabet) was designed at FrenchDictionary.com to show English speakers how French is pronounced.

Each letter includes an example word in French. Note that some letters can be pronounced very differently depending on the word! For example, the letter C is sometimes pronounced like an /s/ and sometimes like a /k/—just like in English (citrus vs. coat)!

Let's take a look at the French alphabet and how the letters are pronounced. The FPA column shows you how each letter is pronounced when you recite the alphabet—not how it's pronounced inside a word!

How to Pronounce Letters of the Alphabet in French with the FPA

The Letters	FPA	French	English
a	a	adorer	to love
b	bey	bébé	baby
c	sey	centre	center
d	dey	dormir	to sleep
e	ey	écrire	to write
f	ehf	faire	to do
g	jey	Georges	Georges
h	ash	haricot	bean
i	ee	immense	huge
j	jee	jardin	garden
k	ka	kiwi	kiwi
l	ehl	loup	wolf
m	ehm	maman	mom
n	ehn	nuit	night
o	o	oser	to dare
p	pey	papa	dad
q	kew	quand	when
r	ehr	rat	rat
s	ehs	sortir	to go out
t	tey	timbre	stamp
u	ew	univers	universe
v	vey	vélo	bike
w	doo-bluh-vey	wagon	(train) car
x	eeks	xylophone	xylophone
y	ee-grehk	yaourt	yogurt
z	zehd	zèbre	zebra

For an exhaustive list of all the sounds associated with specific letters or letter combinations, make sure to take a look at these articles!

French Consonants

How to Use French Accent Marks

French Diacritical Marks That Impact the Pronunciation of a Word

Some French diacritical marks will dictate how a letter is pronounced. Let's take a look!

Diacritics in French

Diacritic Name	Diacritic Example	What does it indicate?
accent aigu(acute accent)	é	It indicates that the letter E should be pronounced ey, as in English hey.
accent grave(grave accent)	è	It indicates that the letter E should be pronounced eh, as in English bed and pear.
tréma(dieresis)	ë, ï, ü	It is used to separate the vowel it appears on from the adjacent vowel. You need to pronounce the two vowels separately.
cédille (cedilla)	ç	It indicates that the letter C must be pronounced /s/.

Some of these diacritical marks can appear on other letters as well. For example, the accent grave is also found on A and U, as in là(here) and où(where). However, the pronunciation is not impacted—meaning that these words would be pronounced just the same if there were no accent grave on them!

Examples of Diacritical Marks in French That Impact Pronunciation

French	FPA	English
bébé	bey-bey	baby
père	pehr	father
naïf	na-eef	naive
français	frahn-sey	French

For an exhaustive list of all the French diacritical marks, make sure to take a look at this article!

How to Use French Accent Marks

Many Letters, One Sound

French is notoriously difficult to read and to pronounce. This is because a lot of the letters are silent, or, when combined with other letters, make just a single sound.

Here are just a few of the common letter combinations that make just one sound in French.

Letter Combinations That Make One Sound in French

IPA	French	FPA	English
e	baie	bey	bay
e	lait	ley	milk
e	chez	shey	at
o	chaud	sho	hot
o	beau	bo	beautiful
o	Hérault	e-ro	Hérault

This all may sound a bit confusing, but don't worry! With some practice, you will understand which letter combinations are pronounced in a specific way, and which letters are silent. Eventually, you will be able to read French without having to think about how you're supposed to pronounce words!

Learn all about sounds in French with these articles!