Combination of letters

Combination of letters in French words. How do French words sound? How are French words pronounced? It’s really easy to learn with Anne's list. Copy her French accent.

Semaine 3

Les mots en français ne sont pas toujours intuitifs.

French words don’t always look the way they sound. They may combine letters to make a new sound. Let’s go over the most common ones here.

For instance,

EAU is pronounced O, such as in

EAU –> water

BEAU –> beautiful

CU is pronounced KU, such as in

CUBE –> cube

but ÇU is pronounced SU, such as in

REÇU –> received

My take on how to pronounce French words is to look at the chart below and then, one by one, to memorize each word as they come to you.

looks like

sounds like

French example

English translation

ai

short open eight

ai

have

an, en

bump

banc

bench

au, eau

short rounded ‘oh’

haut

high

ca

ka

cas

case

ça

sa

ça

it (contraction of ‘cela’)

ch

sh

chat

cat

ci

see

ici

here

co

ko

comment

how

çon

song

garçon

boy

cu

ku

cube

cub

Continue in the companion worksheet

Related: English words in French . French words in English .

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