L’alphabet français – The French alphabet
The French alphabet – L’alphabet français
When introducing yourself, it is important to be able to spell your name, your email address or places in France where you want to go. As your pronunciation may not be exactly perfect, spelling words is an interesting backup plan.
Before going any further in this lesson, let’s enjoy this chef d’œuvre from Philippe Katerine so you get that the French alphabet can be memorised with fun 🎶🤪
Les derniers seront toujours les premiers de Philippe Katerine
🇫🇷 Philippe Katerine donne sa propre version de l’alphabet français dans cette chanson, avec l’aide de nombreux enfants mignons.
➜ Serez-vous capable de réciter l’alphabet à l’envers ?
🇬🇧 Philippe Katerine gives his own version of the French alphabet in this song, with the help of a lot of cute kids.
➜ Will you be able to recite the alphabet backwards?
Les lettres – The letters
Les voyelles – The vowels
There are 6 vowels in the French alphabet:
| 🇫🇷 French | 🇬🇧 English | |
|---|---|---|
| une voyelle | a vowel | |
| A | Aberdeen | |
| E | [eh] | |
| I | [e] | |
| O | [o] | |
| U | [oo] | |
| Y | [egrac] |
Les consonnes – The consonants
There are 20 consonants in the French alphabet:
| 🇫🇷 French | 🇬🇧 English | |
|---|---|---|
| une consonne | a consonant | |
| B | [bay] | |
| C | [say] | |
| D | [day] | |
| F | [f] | |
| G | [J] | |
| H | [ash] | |
| J | [g] | |
| K | [ka] | |
| L | [L] | |
| M | [m] | |
| N | [n] | |
| P | [pay] | |
| Q | [qoo] | |
| R | [air] | |
| S | [s] | |
| T | [tay] | |
| V | [vay] | |
| W | [doobleh vay] | |
| X | [ix] | |
| Z | [zayd] |
The whole alphabet:
| 🇫🇷 French | |
|---|---|
| l’alphabet = the alphabet | |
| A B C D E F G H I J K L M N O P Q R S T U V W X Y Z |
“A” comme … – “A” as in…
When spelling in French, in order to avoid any confusion between letters with similar pronunciation like b and v for example, we use well-known French first names as references. So you would say: “A comme Albert“, “B comme Barbara“, ….
Here comes a list of common French first names that you can use:
| 🇫🇷 French | 🇫🇷 French | ||
|---|---|---|---|
| A comme Alain A comme Alexandre | N comme Noémie N comme Nicolas | ||
| B comme Baptiste B comme Barbara | O comme Oscar O comme Olivia | ||
| C comme Céline | P comme Patrick | ||
| D comme David | Q comme Quentin | ||
| E comme Emilie | R comme Raphaël | ||
| F comme Florence | S comme Sarah S comme Sébastien | ||
| G comme Gabriel | T comme Thomas | ||
| H comme Hugo | U comme Ursulla | ||
| I comme Inès | V comme Valentin V comme Vanessa | ||
| J comme Julien J comme Julie | W comme Wilfrid W comme William | ||
| K comme Kévin | X comme Xavier | ||
| L comme Lucas | Y comme Yannick | ||
| M comme Maxime M comme Marie | Z comme Zoé |
“ABC pour casser“, performed by Peter Kitsch and Olivia
🇫🇷 Dans cette chanson de 1996 intitulée “ABC pour casser“, interprétée par Peter Kitsch et Olivia, le principe est que chaque phrase se termine par une lettre de l’alphabet, dans l’ordre alphabétique bien sûr. Elle raconte une dispute conjugale, ou plus précisément, un homme qui explique à sa petite amie pourquoi il la largue.
🇬🇧 In this 1996 song entitled “ABC pour casser“, performed by Peter Kitsch and Olivia, the principle is that each sentence ends with a letter of the alphabet, in alphabetical order of course. It recounts a domestic dispute, or more precisely, a man explaining to his girlfriend why he is dumping her.
Les lettres avec accents ou tréma – The letters with accents or diaeresis
In the French language, certain vowels have distinctive signs above them. These signs are called accents. There are 3 types of accent: l’accent aigu – the acute accent (the most common), l’accent grave – the grave accent and l’accent circonflexe – the circumflex accent (the rarest). You can also find another sign: le tréma – diaeresis.
The accent sometimes changes the original pronunciation of the letter, like the acute accent on the letter “e” for example, but this is not always the case.
In other cases, the accent is used to distinguish two different words. This is the case with “a” and “à“. “a” is the verb “avoir” conjugated in the present tense in the third person singular (“il a“) whereas “à” is a preposition of place (“à la boulangerie“).
Now let’s look at the variety of accents and whether or not they change pronunciation:
L’accent aigu – the acute accent
You only find it on the letter “e” : “é” = [a]
| 🇫🇷 French | 🇬🇧 English | ça s’écrit … = you spell it… | |
|---|---|---|---|
| accent aigu | acute accent | ||
| été | summer | e accent aigu – t – e accent aigu |
L’accent grave – the grave accent
You only find it on the letters “a” -> “à“, “e” ->”è” = [ay] and “u” -> “ù” :
| 🇫🇷 French | 🇬🇧 English | ça s’écrit … = you spell it… | |
|---|---|---|---|
| accent grave | grave accent | ||
| là | here | l – a accent grave | |
| mère | mother | m – e accent grave – r – e | |
| où | where | o – u accent grave |
L’accent circonflexe – the circumflex accent
You can find it on the letters “a” -> “â“, “e” -> “ê” = [ay], “i” -> “î“, “o” -> “ô” and “u” -> “û” :
| 🇫🇷 French | 🇬🇧 English | ça s’écrit … = you spell it… | |
|---|---|---|---|
| accent circonflexe | circumflex | ||
| âge | age | a accent circonflexe – g – e | |
| être | to be | e accent circonflexe – t – r – e | |
| île | island | i accent circonflexe – l – e | |
| hôtel | hotel | h – o accent circonflexe – t – e – l | |
| coûter | to cost | c – o – u accent circonflexe – t – e – r |
Le tréma – diaeresis
The diaeresis is the two dots placed over the “e”, “i” and “u” to indicate that the preceding vowel should be pronounced separately.
You only find it on the letters “e” -> “ë“, “i” -> “ï” and “u” -> “ü“:
| 🇫🇷 French | 🇬🇧 English | ça s’écrit … = you spell it… | |
|---|---|---|---|
| tréma | diaeresis | ||
| Noël | Christmas | n – o – e tréma – l | |
| maïs | corn | m – a – i tréma – s | |
| ambigüe | ambiguous | a – m – b – i – g – u tréma – e |
Espace, majuscule et minuscule – Space, capital and small letters
Espace – Space
| 🇫🇷 French | 🇬🇧 English | ça s’écrit … = you spell it… | |
|---|---|---|---|
| espace | space | ||
| mon vélo | my bike | m – o – n – espace – v – e accent aigu – l – o |
Majuscule et minuscule – Capital letters and small letters
| caractère = character | 🇫🇷 French | 🇬🇧 English | |
|---|---|---|---|
| M | m majuscule | capital m | |
| m | m minuscule | lowercase m |
Les autres signes – The other signs
La cédille – Cedilla
The cedilla is a small hook written under the letter c to indicate that it is pronounced [s].
The sound made the letter “c” without cedilla can be either [k] or [s]:
➜ when the letter c is followed by the vowels e, i or y, the sound is [s]
➜ when the letter c is followed by the vowels a, o or u, the sound is [k]
The cedilla is placed under the c before the vowels a, o or u when the c must retain the [s] sound.
| 🇫🇷 French | 🇬🇧 English | ça s’écrit … = you spell it… | |
|---|---|---|---|
| cédille | cedilla | ||
| ça | that | c cédille – a | |
| garçon | boy | g – a – r – c cédille – o – n | |
| reçu | received | r – e – c cédille – u |
L’apostrophe – Apostrophe
‘ It replaces “e” or “a” when the following word starts with a vowel:
| 🇫🇷 French | 🇬🇧 English | ça s’écrit … = you spell it… | |
|---|---|---|---|
| apostrophe | apostrophe | ||
l’école | the school | l apostrophe – e accent aigu – c – o – l – e | |
j’aime | I like / I love | j apostrophe – a – i – m – e |
Le trait d’union – Hyphen
| 🇫🇷 French | 🇬🇧 English | ça s’écrit … = you spell it… | |
|---|---|---|---|
| trait d’union | hyphen | ||
| vingt-sept | twenty-seven | v – i – n – g – t – trait d’union – s – e – p – t |
Les signes de ponctuation – Punctuation marks
Les points – Dots
| 🇫🇷 French | 🇬🇧 English | |
|---|---|---|
| point d’interrogation | question mark | |
| point d’exclamation | exclamation mark | |
| deux-points | colon | |
| point virgule | semicolon | |
| points de suspension | dot dot dot |
La virgule – Comma
| 🇫🇷 French | 🇬🇧 English | ça s’écrit … = you spell it… | |
|---|---|---|---|
| virgule | comma | ||
| J’aime les pommes, les poires et les clémentines. | I like apples, pears and clementines. | j majuscule – apostrophe – a – i – m – e – espace – l – e – s – espace – p – o – deux m – e – s – virgule – l – e – s – espace – p – o – i – r – e – s – espace – e – t – espace – l – e – s – espace – c – l – e accent aigu – m – e – n – t – i – n – e – s – point |
Les parenthèses – Parenthesis / Brackets
| 🇫🇷 French | 🇬🇧 English | ça s’écrit … = you spell it… | |
|---|---|---|---|
| parenthèses | parenthesis / brackets | ||
| belle (et grande) | beautiful (and tall) | b – e – deux l – e – ouvrez la parenthèse – e – t – espace – g – r – a – n – d – e – fermez la parenthèse |
Les guillemets – Quotation mark
| 🇫🇷 French | 🇬🇧 English | ça s’écrit … = you spell it… | |
|---|---|---|---|
| guillemets | quotation marks | ||
| Descartes a dit : “Je pense donc je suis.” | Descartes said: “I think therefore I am.” | D majuscule – e – s – c – a – r – t – e – s – espace – a – espace – d – i – t – deux points – ouvrez les guillemets – j majuscule – e – espace – p – e – n – s – e – espace – d – o – n – c – espace – j – e – espace – s – u – i – s – point – fermez les guillemets |