-Today, you're going to learn the most
crucial pronunciation tips for French beginners.
Once you master these basic tips
you'll improve your accent dramatically
and sound more like a native speaker.
Are you ready to learn the essential rules for French pronunciation?
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-And then let's get to the alphabet.
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So E, that's for E. G is like a G sound
like in measure, G. R, R.
It's pretty much all the time that the H is silent.
That's a general rule, whenever you have an H
you don't pronounce it.
So it's just like L'homme, -- It's there
but you don't say it.
It's almost like a Y sound,
almost, when you have two L's together.
So Fille, you wouldn't think that that's how you spell it.
G, it depends - if it's before an E and an I,
it's like S in measure, like a G;
but if it's before an A, O or U,
it's like a G in get,
so it depends. Let's see.
We have Le garçon, which is "the boy,"
so because we have an A right after it,
it's like G in get.
Basically, we have five different categories.
We have the accent aigu,
which is on an E only
and goes from the bottom left to the upper right,
for example on Éléphant.
That means that the pronunciation of the E changes
to an a-y, for example - Café.
It's almost like an a-y sound, café.
Then we have the accent grave, and that can be on the è,
on the à and the ù.
It's for example in Fièvre, in Là or in Où.
If you have it on the letter E
it changes pronunciation to E, for example Crème.
It's like an e-h sound almost, or Fièvre.
For the letter a and u, it doesn't change the pronunciation,
but it can indicate that it's a different word.
For example la without an accent grave
on the A just means your article.
It's the female article. For example La femme - "the woman."
If we have it with an accent grave, it means "there."
So sometimes, it's used for pronunciation,
but then you also have the cases when it relates to a different word.
Then we have the accent circumflex,
which is like a little hat on top of the vowels.
That has a similar function like the A and the U with the accent grave,
and doesn't change the pronunciation,
but it indicates another word.
For example we have Mur, M-u-r,
without the little circonflexe it means "wall,"
but if you put a little circonflexe on top of the u, it means "ripe."
It's really important to focus on the little details
of a word to figure out what it means or how to pronounce it.
That's the circonflexe. We have the tréma,
which is like two little dots on e, i, u and y.
For example - Noël is Christmas; "maïs" for corn.
Then we have the cédille.
We talked about that before.
That's almost like a little "s" under the C,
and that means that we pronounce it soft, so - Français.
It's not very sharp but it's soft.
Then there's some basic pronunciation rules.
The stress on French words always falls
on the last pronounced syllable,
so you have the stress always at the end of a word,
like Crème as an example.
Then the ç with a little "s" on the bottom is always pronounced as "S,"
so Garçon, leçon, façon - so like a soft S.
The letter H is never pronounced.
We had that with L'Hôpital - a hospital.
You don't hear it at all.
Then there is a rule when a word ends
with a consonant and the next word
begins with a vowel or silent H, like Hôpital,
when you pronounce it, you basically connect the two words.
For exemple L'Hôpital, les enfants.
You don't say "Les enfants" because in French,
it always sounds, almost like singing, really, so "Les enfants."
Then we have any French letters like an A
and E in the words - le, la ce, je, me, te, se, de, ne and que.
Whenever you have these and you notice
that they have a vowel at the end, then the last vowel is dropped
and just a little apostrophe and you connect the other word.
L'enfant, "the child," would actually be le enfant; le is male
and because you have an E and an E coming together
you cut off the E and you replace it with an apostrophe -
l'enfant. That's again just so it sounds better
and it's not so "le enfant."
That doesn't sound as good as "l'enfant."
Then the nasal sounds, they're indicated by a vowel plus N or M.
The vowel becomes nasal, and the N or the M is not pronounced.
For example - Un. The U-n: "un."
We say the U, but we don't really say the N.
"Le pain," yes, because you have the vowel,
the I, and then you have an N, and then it's "pain."
Because the I gets nasal and the N is not pronounced.
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