French Alphabet

French is spoken by about 265 million people in France, Belgium, Luxembourg, Canada, Switzerland, Italy, the U.S, Lebanon, French Guiana, north, west and central Africa, Madagascar, some islands in the Indian Ocean, Haiti and other Caribbean islands, Indochina, New Caledonia, the New Hebrides and the French Pacific Territories.

The French Alphabet has the same number of letters as English 26, but some of them have “accents” and “cedilla”, that doesn’t make their pronunciation different, only to distinguish them from other similar looking words except the cedilla ç, which is pronounced as “S” and never as “k”. The table below shows how the French letters are pronounced.

French Alphabet

Aa as in the word “ask” and never as in the word “able”

Bb same as in English

Cc like “s” before "i" or "e" and when it has the cedilla “ç”; otherwise like "k” in Creole.

Dd same as in English (many words in French alphabet are the same)

Ee as in “elevated”

Ff same as in English

Gg like the "s" in the word “pleasure” before "e" or "i"; otherwise like the "g" in "God", never pronounced as “dj”.

Hh silent most of the time.

Ii as in the word “ink” never as in the word “island”

Jj as in Job, but without the “d” pronounced before the J, never as {djob} but {job}

Kk same as in English

Ll same as in English

Mm same as in English

Nn same as in English

Oo same as in English “Old” never as in “Hot” which is pronounced somehow like {hat}

Pp same as in English

Qq same as in English

Rr same as in English but slightly like as in “gh” as in Merci

Ss same as in English

Tt same as in English not as sharp.

Uu as in the “ultra”, never as in the word “up” or “university”

Vv same as in English

Ww as in English although rare (mainly found in borrowed words)

Xx same as in English

Yy same as in English although rare.

Zz same as in English

As you may have noticed, many letters in French alphabet are the same as English, the pronunciation is a little bit different sometimes, but in general French letters look the same, and sound the same, so learning them should be a breeze!

Letters with an accent

French Letter	English Sound

à, â, ù, û, ü, ô, î	Same as the regular matching letter in French
é	sounds more like in « ai » in « fairy »
E	sounds more like in « grey » (but more low-pitched)
ê	sounds like “é” (but a bit more low-pitched)

Compund Letters

French Letter	English Sound

œ	sounds like the « e » in « love »
Ch	sounds sometimes like “sh”.
Qu	sounds like “K”.
Gu	sounds like in « guitar » or « gualapagos »
ç	sounds sometimes like “s”.
au	Sounds like « o »
Ou	Sounds like « oo » like in « Whoose »
An / am/ en/ em	Sounds like in « abundant » but with some prononciation variants between all of this forms
in /im	Sounds like the pronunciation of the number 1 in French
ai	sounds like the « é »
oi	sounds like « wa » .
ei	sounds like “è”.
Ce / ci	In this case, « c » sounds like « s »
eu	sounds like « » .
er	sounds like “é” when at the end of a word (not like manager).
aux	Sounds like « o » and the X is mute.
gn	Always like in "campaign"

I hope the content of this page was useful to you, and that you learned some French alphabet, consonants and vowels. Make sure to memorize them to be able to use them in your daily conversation.