🔤 French letters and accents
📖 In short
French is written with twenty-six Latin letters, from left to right. But it has little marks above or below some letters that change how they sound, like é, è and ç. Learning them helps you read and write correctly.
🔎 The lesson
1 Twenty-six letters
There are six vowels: a e i o u y, and the rest are consonants. We use a capital letter at the start of a sentence and for names of people and towns: Paris, Sami.
- Bonjour, je m'appelle Sami.Hello, my name is Sami.
- J'habite à Tunis.I live in Tunis.
2 Accents on the letter e
An e without an accent is often said very lightly, while é sounds like a clear “ay”, and è and ê sound like an open “eh”.
| Accent | Example | Meaning |
|---|---|---|
| é | l'été | Summer |
| è | la mère | Mother |
| ê | la fête | Party |
| ë | Noël | Christmas |
3 The letter ç
Before a, o and u, the letter c sounds like “k”: le café. To make it sound like “s”, we add a little tail under it: ç.
- un garçonA boy
- la leçonThe lesson
- le françaisThe French language
4 Silent letters
Many letters at the end of a word aren't pronounced: petit is said “puh-tee”, and in les chats you don't hear the s. And the letter h is never pronounced: l'hôpital.
- petitSmall
- les chatsThe cats
- l'hôpitalThe hospital
💡 Watch out!
- On a French AZERTY keyboard, you'll find é on the number 2 key, and è on the number 7 key.
- Read the words out loud, and press the 🔊 button to hear how they're said.
🧩 Test yourself
1 Which letter sounds like “s”?
2 Is the h pronounced in l'hôtel?
3 What does la fête mean?
← Greetings and introductions in French