French vowels

Tu (you) and tout (all) differ by one vowel, and French speakers hear the difference at once.

French has six vowel letters, a, e, i, o, u and y, but more than ten vowel sounds. The extra sounds come from accents, which you met in the last unit, and from fixed letter groups such as ou, au and eu. This is where French reading becomes predictable: ou is read the same way in every word, and so is au. The vowels also behave differently from English ones. They are short, tense and steady. English say slides from one vowel into another; French ses (his, her) does not move at all from start to finish.

u and ou

The most important pair for a beginner is u and ou. The group ou is the oo of English food: vous (you), tout (all), rouge (red), bonjour. The single letter u is a sound English does not have. To make it, say ee, keep your tongue exactly where it is, and push your lips forward into a tight round shape, as if to whistle. That is the vowel of tu (you), rue (street), du (some) and salut (hi). If you round your lips but let the tongue slide back, you get ou instead, and the word changes.

Several pairs of words differ only in this vowel: tu (you) and tout (all), rue (street) and roue (wheel), dessus (on top) and dessous (underneath), vu (seen) and vous (you). Practising them side by side is the quickest way to train both your mouth and your ear.

The e sounds

Plain e without an accent has three possible readings. At the end of a word it is usually silent: table, porte (door). In short words such as le, de, je and me it is a light, relaxed sound close to the vowel in English the, said with slightly rounded lips. In the middle of a word this light e is often dropped in normal speech, so samedi (Saturday) sounds like sam-di. Before two consonants or a final consonant, e usually sounds like è: merci, belle, avec. Spelled é, or er and ez at the end of a word, it has the closed sound of été: parler (to speak), nez (nose), chez (at the home of).

Letter groups

A handful of vowel groups are worth learning as single units, because each one stands for one sound. Ai and ei sound like è: lait (milk), maison (house), neige (snow). Au and eau sound like a closed o: au, chaud (hot), beau (beautiful), eau (water). Eu and œu have two related sounds, close and open: deux (two), bleu (blue), heure (hour), sœur (sister), cœur (heart). To make eu, say é and round your lips. Oi is read wa: moi (me), toi (you), trois (three), voiture (car). Before another vowel, ou becomes a w sound and u a quick glide: oui (yes), ouest (west), huit (eight), nuit (night).