Consonants: r, h, ch, gn, j and g

The h in hôtel is never pronounced, yet the h in héros still stops le from becoming l’.

Most French consonants sound much as they do in English: b, d, f, l, m, n, p, t and v give few problems. This unit picks out the ones that differ: the French r, the silent h, the groups ch and gn, the soft j and g, and a few spelling rules for c, g and s that decide which sound a letter makes. One small adjustment applies to p, t and k as well. English adds a puff of air after them at the start of a word; French does not. Hold your hand in front of your mouth and say papa. In French your hand should feel almost nothing.

The French r

The French r is made at the back of the mouth, not with the tip of the tongue. The University of Texas course Français interactif describes it as a sound produced when air rubs against the back of the throat, close to a light clearing of the throat. Keep the tip of your tongue behind your lower front teeth, raise the back of the tongue toward the soft palate, and let air scrape through the narrow gap. Start with words where r follows a consonant, such as très, gris (grey) and trois, then move on to r at the start, as in rouge and rue, and r at the end, as in bonjour and noir (black).

The silent h

The letter h is never pronounced in French: hôtel, heure, homme (man) and histoire (history) all start with a vowel sound. Even so, there are two kinds of h. Most words have a mute h (h muet), which behaves like a vowel: you write l’hôtel, l’homme, and the s of les links across in les hommes, said lay-zom. A smaller group of words, many of them borrowed from Germanic languages, has an aspirated h (h aspiré). It is just as silent, but it acts like a consonant. You write le héros, la honte (shame), le haricot (bean), and there is no linking: les héros, les haricots.

ch, gn, j and g

Ch is the sh of English ship: chat (cat), chocolat, chercher (to look for). A few words from Greek keep a k sound, such as orchestre and chorale. Gn is the ny of canyon, said as one sound: montagne (mountain), Espagne (Spain), champagne, gagner (to win). J is the soft sound of the s in measure: je, jour (day), bonjour. G has the same soft sound before e, i and y: rouge, gentil (kind), girafe. Before a, o and u, and before consonants, g is hard as in go: gare (station), gomme (eraser), grand. To keep g hard before e or i, French adds u: guerre (war), guitare. To keep it soft before a or o, it adds e: mangeons (we eat), Georges.

c, s, qu and th

C works like g. Before e, i and y it sounds like s: ce, cinéma, cycle; elsewhere it sounds like k: café, comme, classe; and ç gives s before a, o and u. A single s between two vowels sounds like z, while ss stays s, which separates poison (poison) from poisson (fish) and désert (desert) from dessert. Qu is simply k: qui (who), quatre (four), que. Th is just t: thé (tea), théâtre. Finally, ill usually gives a y sound, as in fille (girl), famille and travailler (to work), but a handful of words keep a real l: ville (town), mille (thousand) and tranquille.