Learning French in Paris, Leçon 0 – 2

The Alphabet

The French alphabet is basically the same as the English alphabet but some of the letters have different sounds. To make matters worse some of them have sounds similar to other letters in the English language. For instance I sounds like E to me, J sounds like G, E sounds like A and A sounds like R.

It is, however, important to get them right. Not only for correct pronunciation but in case someone asks you to spell your name or you wish to give them your email address.

A phone conversation might go like this;

Person speaking	French	English
John	Je m’appelle John Doe.	I am called John Doe.
Jane	Pardon, ça s’écrit comment Doe?	Excuse me. How do you spell Doe?
John	D O E	D O E
Jane	Vous pouvez répéter, s’il vous plaît?	Can you repeat that, please?
John	D O E	D O E
Jane	Merci	Thank you.

In the above conversation Jane would probably have spelt Doe as D O I, not D O E. Play the recording below and scroll down the alphabet.

Letter	Phonetic
A	[a]
B	[be]
C	[se]
D	[de]
E	[ə]
F	[ɛf]
G	[ʒe]
H	[aʃ]
I	[i]
J	[ʒi]
K	[ka]
L	[ɛl]
M	[ɛm]
N	[ɛn]
O	[o]
P	[pe]
Q	[ky]
R	[ɛR]
S	[ɛs]
T	[te]
U	[y]
V	[ve]
W	[dubləve]
X	[iks]
Y	[igRɛk]
Z	[zɛd]

Another important part of French is the use of accents, grave accent, circumflex, trema and other language constructs. Some of these are listed in the table below.

Character	Name	Phonetic
é	Accent aigü	[ə aksɑ̃ egy]
à/è	Accent grave	[ə aksɑ̃ gRav]
â/ê	Accent circonflexe	[ə aksɑ̃ siRkɔ̃flɛks]
ë	Tréma	[ə tRema]
(d)’	Apostrophe	[de apostRof]
LL	Deux l	[døzɛl]