French Alphabet: Letter Sounds, Accents and Spelling Aloud

The French alphabet looks easy: it has the same 26 letters you already know. Then a receptionist in Montréal asks you to spell your last name, you say "E" for the letter I, and the booking comes out wrong. The letters are the same. Their names are not.

This page gives you each letter with a simple pronunciation, the pairs that trip up English speakers, the five accent marks and what they do, the joined letters œ and æ, and the part most alphabet guides skip: how to actually spell a name or an email address out loud in French, the way you will need to on the phone.

The 26 letters of the French alphabet

Read the "Say it like" column out loud. The French names are short, and most of them end in a clear vowel.

Two names tell you something useful. W is "double V", not "double U", so you say double vé. Y is i grec, the "Greek I", because the letter came from Greek. And Z is always zède, like British English, never "zee".

Tip from class: to stop mixing up G and J, remember that the letter G sounds exactly like j'ai (I have). Once G is j'ai, J is the other one: ji.

The letters English speakers mix up most

In lessons, almost every spelling mistake comes from four pairs. Practice these until they are automatic.

• E and I. The French E is a short uh. The French I is ee, which is what an English speaker calls "E". So when you spell Mike in French, you say em, i, ka, uh. Saying "ee" for the E is the number one mistake I hear.
• G and J. They feel reversed. G is zhay, J is zhee. If you spell Jessica with an English J, a French speaker will write a G.
• U and the English "you". The French U has no English twin. Say ee, keep your tongue where it is, and round your lips as if to whistle. That is the sound in tu, rue and salut.
• R. The letter name is erre, with a soft R from the back of the throat. It is not rolled like Spanish, and it is not the English R.

French alphabet accents: the five marks and what they do

Accents are not decoration. They change how a letter sounds, or they separate two words that would otherwise look identical. Learn them with words, not as abstract rules.

The circumflex is the most fun to learn, because it often hides an English cousin: forêt and forest, hôpital and hospital, île and isle, fête and feast. When you see a circumflex, try adding an S in your head.

The cédille only goes under C, and only before a, o or u. Before e and i, a C already sounds like S (ceci, cinéma), so there is nothing to fix.

Do accents go on capital letters?

Yes. The Académie française says that in French "l'accent a pleine valeur orthographique": the accent is a real part of the spelling, and accents, the tréma and the cédille should be kept on capitals. Write ÉCOLE, À bientôt and Ça va. If you were taught that capitals lose their accents, that was a typewriter habit, not a rule.

What changed with the 1990 spelling rules

You may see the same word spelled two ways. In 1990, the Conseil supérieur de la langue française published spelling "rectifications" that the Académie française approved, and both the old and the new spellings are accepted. Three changes matter for the alphabet:

• The circumflex is no longer required on i and u (ile or île, gout or goût). It stays where it changes the meaning, as in mûr (ripe) vs mur (wall), sûr (sure) vs sur (on), and jeûne (fast) vs jeune (young).
• The tréma moves to the vowel you actually pronounce: aigüe instead of aiguë, ambigüe instead of ambiguë.
• Some accents now match how a word sounds: évènement is accepted next to événement.

As a learner, use whichever spelling your textbook uses, and don't panic when you meet the other one.

Œ and æ: the joined letters

French has two joined vowels. They are not extra letters of the alphabet, but you will see œ every day.

• œ (e dans l'o, "e in the o") appears in cœur (heart), sœur (sister), œuf (egg), vœu (wish) and œuvre (work of art). In cœur and sœur, it sounds like the eu in peur: round your lips and say "uh".
• æ is rare and comes from Latin, as in curriculum vitæ. The Office québécois de la langue française notes it is pronounced like é.

The OQLF is clear that the two vowels stay joined, in lowercase and in capitals. Writing coeur is common online, but cœur is the correct spelling. Our guide to typing French accents shows how to get œ on a Mac, Windows or phone keyboard.

How to spell your name and email in French

This is where the French alphabet stops being a school exercise. You will spell your name at the doctor's office, at a hotel desk and on every phone call with a bank or a school. Here is the vocabulary you need.

The OQLF adds a useful habit: when a word could be misheard, say "sans accent" (without an accent) or "sans cédille" right after it. If your email says andree while your name is Andrée, spell it and add "sans accent" so nobody types the é.

Mini-dialogue: spelling your name on the phone

• Réceptionniste : Vous pouvez épeler votre nom, s'il vous plaît ? (Can you spell your last name, please?)
• Vous : Oui. Pellerin : P, E, deux L, E, R, I, N. (pay, uh, deux el, uh, air, ee, en)
• Réceptionniste : Et votre adresse courriel ? (And your email address?)
• Vous : sam point pellerin arobase gmail point com.

Say the letters slowly and in small groups. French speakers do the same, and nobody expects you to rush. To practice the polite phrases around this, see our list of basic French phrases for beginners.

How letters sound inside words

Knowing the name of a letter is not the same as knowing its sound in a word. Three rules cover most surprises:

1. Final consonants are usually silent. Petit, trois and beaucoup end in silent letters. The exceptions are mostly C, R, F and L (avec, bonjour, chef, hôtel), the "CaReFuL" rule.
2. H is silent. Homme (man) sounds like "om", heure (hour) like "ur".
3. A final E is quiet, but it wakes up the consonant before it. Petit ends in "tee", petite ends in "teet".

Those rules, nasal vowels and liaison are all in our French pronunciation guide, which is the natural next step after this page.

Common mistakes English speakers make

• Mistake: saying "ee" for the letter E → Say instead: uh. The French I is the one that sounds like "ee".
• Mistake: saying "double-you" for W → Say instead: double vé.
• Mistake: saying "zee" for Z → Say instead: zède.
• Mistake: dropping accents on capitals (Ecole) → Say instead: École. Accents count as spelling.
• Mistake: adding a cédille before e or i (çinéma) → Say instead: cinéma. C is already soft there.
• Mistake: spelling a double letter as "L, L" → Say instead: deux L. It is faster and it is how French speakers do it.

Practice

Try each one out loud before you look at the answer.

1. Spell the word JAZZ in French.
2. Which two letters sound like zhay and zhee?
3. Add the missing accent: garcon, ecole, foret.
4. Read this email aloud: lea.martin@yahoo.ca.
5. How do you say "www" in French?

Answers:

1. ji, a, deux zède (zhee, ah, deux zed).
2. G is zhay, J is zhee.
3. garçon, école, forêt.
4. Léa point Martin arobase yahoo point ca. Add "sans accent" if the address has no é, because the name Léa usually has one.
5. double vé double vé double vé, or triple double vé.

If you are building your first word list, the free French Keys flashcards put the accents in front of you every time you review, which is the easiest way to remember where they go.

In short

The French alphabet has the same 26 letters as English, with new names: learn E (uh), I (ee), G (zhay), J (zhee), W (double vé) and Y (i grec) first. Accents are part of the spelling, even on capitals, and œ stays joined. Practice spelling your own name and email out loud this week, then move on to sounds with our French pronunciation guide or the bigger plan in how to learn French.

Not sure your letters and sounds are coming out right? Book a free 30-minute assessment with Magali: spell your name for her and she will tell you exactly which sounds to work on.