Section 1: ALPHABET - VOWELS

There are 6 sections in this course. In this first section called Alphabet, the one you are in right now, we’ll go through the entire alphabet and every possible sound with each of the 26 letters, with words to give you context, every time. 26 letters does not mean 26 sounds as one letter can have different sounds. This means there will be more than 26 sounds. I will break it all down for you so you encounter every possible sound French vowels and consonants can make.

This first section is organized in 2 parts. This first part covers the vowels and the second part will cover the consonants.

Let’s begin with the vowels. What should we do with our mouth, our lips, and our tongue? We don’t have to worry too much about teeth yet, as they mostly matter when it comes to consonants.

We’re going to move, placing our tongue from the top of our mouth, we’ll stop half way through, to eventually go all the way to the bottom of our mouth.

top = en hauthalf = moitiébottom = en bas

We’ll also move from the front of our mouth = à l’avant, to the back of our mouth = à l’arrière. I learned all these tricks in Latin class, I found them very helpful, and that’s why I’m sharing them with you now.

One important detail before we get started, if you haven’t noticed yet, the French often talk with their lips forward. So I will show my profile too!

VOYELLE i

i as in ITALIE = Italy

Your tongue is towards the top of your mouth, which means it curves up a little.Your tongue is towards the front of your mouth.There’s very little space between your tongue and your palate.

Your jaw can stay relatively closed to make this sound. If you were to open your mouth, it would be very hard to make the sound i.Your lips are slightly stretched out to the sides.

ITALIE

Same applies to the letter y, which can be considered a vowel in French when it is pronounced like the vowel i as in CYGNE = swan.

CYGNE

VOYELLE u

u as in UTILE = useful

As for our previous vowel i, your tongue is towards the top of your mouth, which means it also curves up a little.Only now your tongue is more towards the back of your mouth than the front of it.This means there is a little more space between your tongue and your palate with u than there was with i.Again, your jaw can stay relatively closed to make this sound. If you were to open your mouth, it would be very hard to make the sound u.Your lips need to be rounded and quite tight.

UTILE

VOYELLE e

e as in RETOUR = return

Your tongue is now leaving the top of the mouth where it was for both vowels i & u, to move half way down your mouth.Your tongue is flat and towards the front of your mouth.You need to open your mouth more, creating more space between your tongue and your palate.Your lips are neither stretched out to the sides nor rounded but they are a bit out there.

RETOUR

Don’t worry I’m not forgetting about the various “accents” I will get to these in a minute, when I’m done with the basic vowel sounds.

VOYELLE o

o as in NOVEMBRE = November

As for our previous vowel e, your tongue is positioned half way through your mouth.Only now your tongue is more towards the back of your mouth than the front of it, creating a slight curve down since you are retreating your tongue towards the back of your mouth.You also need to open your mouth, in fact your lower jaw goes down, creating space between your tongue and your palate.Your lips are rounded and out there.

NOVEMBRE

VOYELLE a

a as in CABARET = cabaret

Your tongue is now leaving the middle part of the mouth where it was for both vowels e & o, to move to the bottom of the mouth.Your tongue is flat and heavy, it rests on the bottom part of your mouth.You need to open your mouth even more, creating even more space between your tongue and your palate.Your mouth is open.

CABARET

BACK TO VOYELLE o

Now if we go back to the voyelle o for a moment, you’ll see that it can also sound a little different. We heard the sound o as in NOVEMBER but it can also sound as in ENCORE.

Can you hear the difference in this one vowel between NOVEMBRE & ENCORE?

There is a reason why I’m bringing ENCORE right after CABARET. That’s because what you do with your mouth in order to produce the sound o is almost what you do for the sound a. In other words, ENCORE is closer to CABARET than to NOVEMBRE.

o as in ENCORE = again, still, yet

Your tongue is at the bottom of the mouth.

Your tongue is flat and heavy, it rests on the bottom part of your mouth.You need to open your mouth, creating a space between your tongue and your palate.Here’s the main difference between a & o. For o your mouth and your lips are slightly rounded, whereas for a, they were simply open.

ENCORE

BACK TO VOYELLE e

Remember I told you: “Don’t worry I’m not forgetting about the various “accents”? Now is when we explore these… Sure the “accents” don’t only go on top of the vowel e but, on other vowels, it doesn’t really change the sound, so, to keep things simple, I’m going to stick to this vowel e.

The vowel e will sound differently depending on the accent placed on top of it. There are 2 different sounds, which, for some of you, may sound quite similar. It has been my experience that even though they sound different to me since I’m French, my students often struggle to hear and therefore produce that difference with their mouths.

These 2 sounds are é and è. Can you hear the difference?

Sound É made with the accent aigu

Let’s begin with é as in CAFÉ. This accent is called accent aigu. Aigu means high-pitched, which will help you to remember the direction of the accent: up!Let’s focus on what our tongue does here. You’ll see it’s so helpful.

Remember that the vowel i goes to the top of your mouth, leaving very little space between your tongue and your palate?Now, remember that the vowel e positions itself in the middle of your mouth, thus leaving more space between your tongue and your palate? Make these 2 sounds and focus on that space, between your tongue and your palate. Guess what? Our new sound é as in café, needs your tongue to be exactly in the middle, half way through the i and the e. You can even play moving your tongue up: e é i, or down: i é e.

CAFÉ

Sound È made with the accent grave

Now let’s have a look at the other sound è as in CRÈME. This accent is called accent grave. All you need to do is picture a grave to remember the direction of the accent: down!Once again, let’s focus on the tongue. This one is easier because you pretty much need to do exactly what you did for the vowel e.

Your tongue is half way through the mouth.Your tongue is flat and towards the front of your mouth.You need to open your mouth, creating space between your tongue and your palate.Here’s the tiny difference between e & è. For the vowel e, your lips are not stretched out to the sides. For the sound è, your lips just need to stretch out to the sides a tiny amount.That’s it!

CRÈME

If you like delicious French desserts, you probably love crème brûlée!

And that’s a good one to practice with, not eating but pronouncing, because it has both sounds:

è as in CRÈME

é as in BRÛLÉE.

Crème è brûlée é

Hear the difference?

2 other accents that sound like È: Ê & Ë

There are two other French accents that will have that exact same sound as the accent grave you find in crème.

They’re called accent circonflexe and tréma. The accent circonflexe is the little hat, tréma is the 2 little dots.

ê as in CRÊPE = big and flat pancake

Can you hear how it sounds just like crème? Different accent, same sound. CRÊPE - CRÈME

ë as in Noël = Christmas

Again, can you hear how it sounds just like crème & crêpe? Different accent, same sound. CRÊPE - CRÈME - NOËL

Recap!

Ok, let’s do a little recap:

Without accent: e as in RETOUR

With accent aigu: é as in CAFÉ or BRÛLÉE

The next 3 all sound the same:

With accent grave: è as in CRÈME

With accent circonflexe: ê as in CRÊPE

With tréma: ë as in NOËL

SEMI VOWEL y

Before we move on to consonants, let’s have a look at the letter y again. I’ve already mentioned it above as being a vowel when it sounds exactly like the vowel i, for instance in the word cygne, which means swan.

For pronunciation purposes, the y in cygne could be replaced by the vowel i, it would sound exactly the same. That’s why y can be considered a vowel.

However, it can also be a semi vowel in words such as yo-yo, yoga, Yougoslavie.

How to make this sound? That’s easy. Prepare your mouth exactly like you did for the vowel i, only this time you will need your teeth at the end.

Your tongue is towards the top of your mouth and it’s curved up.Your tongue is towards the front of your mouth.There’s even less space between your tongue and your palate that there was for the vowel i.Your mouth can stay relatively closed to make this sound.Your lips are slightly stretched out to the sides.You now need to use your teeth to push your tongue.

YOGA

Congratulations!!! You have just gone through all the vowels, and the 1 semi vowel!Now let’s have a look at consonants.