Un 1.1

The Alphabet

The French alphabet gives us the basic building blocks for all written French and is a great start-off point. Written French is based on the Latin script (like English) and consists of 26 letters, with 5 diacritics, and 2 ligatures.

Explanation

Exercises

Letters - Les lettres

Although the letters of the French alphabet look the same as those in English, many of them are pronounced and named differently.

Letter	Name	Letter	Name
Aa	‘ah’ /a/	Nn	‘en’ /ɛn/
Bb	bay’ /be/	Oo	‘oh’ /o/
Cc	‘say’ /se/	Pp	‘pay’ /pe/
Dd	‘day’ /de/	Qq	‘ku’ /ky/
Ee	‘euh’ /ə/	Rr	‘air’ /ɛʁ/
Ff	‘ef’ /ɛf/	Ss	‘es’ /ɛs/
Gg	‘zhay’ /ʒe/	Tt	‘tay’ /te/
Hh	‘ash’ /aʃ/	Uu	‘u’ /y/
Ii	‘ee’ /i/	Vv	‘vay’ /ve/
Jj	‘zhee’ /ʒi/	Ww	‘doobla vay’ /dubləve/
Kk	‘kah’ /ka/	Xx	eeks’ /iks/
Ll	‘el’ /ɛl/	Yy	‘ee grek’ /i.ɡʁɛk/
Mm	‘em’ /ɛm/	Zz	‘zed’ /zɛd/

Diacritics - Les accents

French diacritics are placed onto vowels. Some change the pronunciation of a vowel, while others offer other functions.

Name	Found on	Effect on pronunciation
accent aigu	é	/e/ (Like in English word ‘say’, but without the final ‘y’ diphthong sound)
accent grave	à è ù	for è – /ɛ/ (Like in English ‘set’) for à, ù – no pronunciation change – used to show differences in some homophones (e.g. la / là)
accent circonflexe	â ê î ô û	often shows the historical disappearance of a letter, usually the letter ‘s’ (e.g. hôpital – English hospital) sometimes used to show differences in some homophones (e.g. du / dû)
accent tréma	ë ï ü ÿ	indicates that that syllable needs to be pronounced separately, i.e. both vowels need to be pronounced (e.g. Noël)
cédille	ç	to make ‘c’ make an ‘s’ (/s/) sound when followed by ‘a’, ‘o’ or ‘u’ (e.g. Comment ça va?)

* the letter ù is only used in one word (où)

When spelling out loud, accents are explained by first saying the name of the letter that has the diacritic, then the name of the diacritic.

e.g.

élève

“e – accent aigu – l – e – accent grave – v – e”

Ligatures - Les ligatures

There are two ligatures in French. They look like two letters combined into one letter. This appearance is reflected in their names, describing it as the letter ‘e’ in another letter.

Letters	Name
Œœ	e dans l’o
Ææ	e dans l’a

These ligatures are extremely rare in French. On the French layout keyboard, there is no way to directly enter these ligatures. However, most modern programs, if set to French language settings, will automatically combine the ‘o’ and ‘e’ when needed.

e.g.