Learn French - Pronunciation, Definite Article

1. Pronunciation

1. In French each sound is pronounced clearly. Each syllable is pronounced equally, with slightly greater stress falling on the last syllable of a word. French has many spellings for one sound.

There are five vowels in French alphabet: a, e, i , o, u. Each of these vowels often take accents: the acute accent (l'accent aigu) - é, the grave accent (l'accent grave) - è, à, ù and the circumflex accent (l'accent circonflexe) - â, ê, î, ô, û.

In this tutorial we will be using international phonetic alphabet symbols to represent the French sounds. These symbols will always appear on the first line of each box in our Pronunciation Guide. The second line will show the letter combinations representing this particular French sound in writing.

We will also be using phonetic symbols in our Phonetic Exercises to help you recognize French sounds in speech.

This sound is similar to a as in  day. At the end of a word e is most often silent.

e

in -er and -ez at the end of a word

parler, nez

é


clé

This sound is similar to u as in  put.

e

in final position of some one-syllable words
que

in unstressed syllable

renard

  Learn to recognize these sounds - Phonetic Exercises

2. Final consonants are usually NOT pronounced in French, except for c, r, f, l. The final consonant c is pronounced as "c" in tric.

2. Grammar - Definite Article

1. To have a good understanding how words are joined together to make meaningful communication in French, we need to learn about parts of speech , such as nouns, articles, verbs, adverbs etc. Learning about the parts of speech is the first step in grammar study just as learning the letters of the alphabet is the first step to being able to read and write.

Noun is a part of speech used to name a person, a place, a thing, a quality or action, such as neighbor, window, happiness.

Article is a part of speech used to indicate nouns and to specify their application.

All French nouns have a gender. They are either masculine or feminine, whether they refer to a person, a thing, an animal, or an abstract notion. French uses le for masculine singular nouns, and la for feminine singular nouns.

How can you tell whether a noun is masculine or feminine? Is there a rule? Yes, the ending of a noun provides a clue: nouns ending in -ure, -sion, -ence, -ance, -té, -ette are usually feminine. Nouns ending in -age, -ment are masculine. Some nouns have irregular endings for masculine and feminine forms.

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Learn French - Pronunciation, Definite Article

J'aime parler français!    == > Leçon 2