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Learn to Speak French! (Easy Steps for Beginners) |
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As you have seen French uses the same characters as English, but what you might not know is that many of the letters sounds different than they do in English. Below is a chart of the letters and the sounds that they make. There are also some words with the literal pronounciation next to them to help you put it all together!
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| a | ahh | k | kay | u |
oo | Bonjour | (hello) | bon-joo(r) | ||||||
| b | bay | l | ell | v |
vay | Au Revoir | (good-bye) | o rev-woir | ||||||
| c | say | m | em | w |
doo-blay-vay | Je m'appelle... | (My name is..) | je(r) ma-pell | ||||||
| d | day | n | en | x |
eeks | J'aime... | (I like...) | jem | ||||||
| e | ooo | o | ouh | y |
ee-grek | Mots | (words) | mo(n) | ||||||
| f | ef | p | pay | z |
zed | Les toilettes | (the bathroom) | lay twa-lets | ||||||
| g | jay | q | quoo | |||||||||||
| h | asch | r | air | |||||||||||
| i | eee | s | ess | |||||||||||
| j | jee | t | tay | |||||||||||
Here are some rules that apply to most words: If a word ends in "t", or, "er", you do NOT pronounce the end and instead say "ay": ballet= bal-ay, parler (to speak)= par-lay If a word ends in "s", you do not pronounce the "s" at all: secours (help) = suh-cour If an "e" has an accent like this "é", prounounce the letter like "ay": donné (give)= don-ay If a word as "oi" in it, pronounce the vowels like "wa": Moi (me)= mwa The letter "h" is almost NEVER pronounced: haricot-vers (green beans)= ah-ree-co-vairs
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