How to Pronounce French Consonants

Learn the pronunciation of French consonants

This tutorial presents an overview of the rules of European/metropolitan French pronunciation, focusing on the vowels, consonants, stress, and intonation patterns that are different from American English. For more practice with comprehension and pronunciation, please check the listening and repetition exercises.

For more French learning through authentic videos, I recommend Yabla French and FluentU. For audiobooks and lessons of modern French, try French Today. I've recommended some French books at Amazon, and Interlinear books are great for learning French by reading literal translations in English. French Listening and Authentic French provide audio and video clips of real, spoken French in various accents with transcripts so you can listen and read along, plus some exercises to test your comprehension. Need even more French? Try the French courses at Udemy or consider purchasing French Language Tutorial as an e-book to support ielanguages.com.

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For more French learning through authentic videos, I recommend Yabla French and FluentU. For audiobooks and lessons of modern French, try French Today. I've recommended some French books at Amazon, and Interlinear books are great for learning French by reading literal translations in English. Need even more French? Try the French courses at Udemy

French Consonants

Many of the consonants in French are very similar to the consonants in English. A few differences include:

1. [p], [t] and [k] are NOT aspirated in French so try not to let that extra puff of air escape from your lips.
   
   
2. Consonants that are alveolar in English are generally dental in French. Try to rest your tongue just behind your teeth instead of on the alveolar ridge for [t], [d], [s], [z], [l] and [n].
   
   
3. The letter h is never pronounced, but you need to remember to distinguish the h non-aspiré from the h aspiré. Most words belong to the first group, but for the words that have an h aspiré, there are two characteristics that make them different: the definite article does not reduce to l' (called elision) but remains le or la and word boundaries are maintained so that sounds do not link (absence of liaison). Most words with an h aspiré are of Germanic origin.
   
   
   

   h non-aspiré	h aspiré
   l'habitude	la hache
   l'herbe	le hall
   l'heure	le haricot
   l'histoire	le hasard
   l'homme	le hibou
   l'honneur	le homard
   l'huile	le hockey

   
   
4. [R] is articulated further back in the throat (with the back of the tongue) and is usually the hardest French consonant for English speakers to pronounce correctly. It is a voiced uvular fricative sound and does not have an effect on preceding vowels the way that American English r does. It must remain consistent in all positions, regardless of the other vowels and consonants that may be adjacent to it.
   
   
   

   Initial	After consonant	Between vowels	Before consonant	Final
   rusé	droit	arrêt	partout	mer
   rang	gris	courir	merle	pire
   rose	trou	pleurer	corde	sourd

   
   
5. In the majority of words with the grapheme ch, the pronunciation is [ʃ], but it is also pronounced [k] in words of Greek origin. It is silent, however, in the word almanach.
   
   
   

   ch = [ʃ]	ch = [k]
   chercher	archéologie
   réchauffer	chaos
   chérubin	chrétien
   architecte	écho
   catéchisme	orchestre
   Achille	chœur

   
   
6. The graphemes gu and qu can be pronounced three different ways: [g], [gw], [gɥ] and [k], [kw], [kɥ], respectively. The majority of words are pronounced with simply [g] and [k], but the spelling will not tell you which sound to pronounce, so you'll just have to learn them individually.
   
   
   

   [g]	[gw]	[gɥ]
   anguille	jaguar	aiguille
   fatigue	iguane	ambiguïté
   guérilla	lingual	linguiste
   distinguer	Guadeloupe

   
   
   

   [k]	[kw]	[kɥ]
   question	adéquat	quiescent
   qualité	aquarium	équilatéral
   équivalent	square	ubiquité
   quartier	équateur	équidistant

   
   
   
7. Even though most final consonants are not pronounced in French (see below), there are a few exceptions, especially with words ending in -s. In words ending in a consonant + s or -es, the s is silent. However, if a word ends in -as, -ès, -is, -os, or -us, then the s is sometimes pronounced.
   
   
   

   final s silent	final s pronounced
   cadenas	atlas
   débarras	pancréas
   accès	aloès
   exprès	palmarès
   logis	oasis
   clos	vis
   dessous	albatros
   confus	sinus
   dehors	ours