French Alphabet Names, Accents, and Spelling Aloud

What are the French letter names?

The names below come from Wiktionary, written in IPA. The words that show each vowel (la, le, si and so on) come from the symbol table in Français interactif, an open course from the University of Texas at Austin.

A few notes on the table:

• Q has a second form in Quebec, /kə/, which Wiktionary lists next to /ky/.
• W is said as double plus the name of V.
• Y is called i grec.
• R uses the French r sound. The r and nasal vowels page shows how to make it.

This site has no recordings for this page. FREN 140, an open course from Palomar College, has a page with the letters and audio. Nobody here has listened to those clips, so use them to get the sounds in your ear, not as a test.

How can you learn 26 names fast?

Sort them into four groups. Many of the names share a vowel with their neighbors, and the table above shows which one.

1. B, C, D, G, P, T, V end in the vowel of ses, /e/.
2. F, L, M, N, R, S start with the vowel of mère, /ɛ/.
3. A, E, I, O, U are a vowel and nothing else.
4. H, J, K, Q, W, X, Y, Z each need learning on their own.

Say one group at a time. Read it, cover it, and say it back.

Which names should you say side by side?

Three pairs. Each one holds two names that are easy to swap.

• G and J. Both start with the same sound. G ends like ses and J ends like si.
• E and I. E is the vowel of le. I is the vowel of si.
• U and O. U is the vowel of tu, and O is the vowel of tôt. Français interactif puts the U sound with rounded lips and the tongue toward the front. The French pronunciation page and the minimal pairs tool have more on it.

Français interactif also says French vowels never slide into a second sound. So hold the end of B, D or O still, the way you held the vowels at the top of this page.

What are the accent marks called?

FREN 140 gives the names and a word for each. You'll need the names when you spell a word that has one.

Wiktionary gives the names this way: accent /ak.sɑ̃/, aigu /ɛ.ɡy/ or /e.ɡy/, grave /ɡʁav/, circonflexe /siʁ.kɔ̃.flɛks/, tréma /tʁe.ma/ and cédille /se.dij/. Say them that way for row 5.

FREN 140 also notes that people often leave the marks out in informal writing, such as texting.

The sources on this page name the marks. They don't show a set way to fit them into spelling aloud. This site's House routine is to say the letter, then the name of its mark: "E, accent aigu." If the person you're spelling for says it another way, copy them.

How do you spell a name out loud?

Letter by letter. Français interactif has a model for it. One person asks Kiblawi, ça s’écrit comment? (Kiblawi, how is that spelled?). The answer is K-I-B-L-A-W-I.

Here are lines you may hear, from the Tatoeba sentence collection:

The votre and pouvez-vous lines use vous. Français interactif says tu is for friends, family and children, and vous is for polite and formal talk. Wiktionary also gives vous as "you all," so use it for more than one person, friends included. The ton and peux-tu lines are the tu forms.

A capital letter is a majuscule, /ma.ʒys.kyl/.

For an email address, Wiktionary gives arobase, /a.ʁɔ.baz/, for @. It gives tiret, /ti.ʁɛ/, for a dash, tiret bas, /ti.ʁɛ ba/, for an underscore and trait d'union for a hyphen. The sources here don't say how people read out the dot in an address, so ask, or listen to how the other person says theirs. Until you know, leave the dot out when you practice.

Start with your name: Je m'appelle Hugo. Put your own name in, then spell it.

How does the week run?

The week is seven rows, from the letters to spelling. How many rows you do in a day depends on your daily amount. The order and the minutes are this site's House routine, untested with learners. Count Spoken Minutes: the timer runs only while you're saying something.

On 5 or 10 Spoken Minutes, do two rows on each letter day: rows 1 and 2, then 3 and 4, then 5 and 6, then row 7 alone. On 20, do one row a day and spend the last 7 minutes going back over earlier rows, spelling words from this page out loud. On day 1, the Cold Say-Back minutes go to the new letters. If you're on the French starting plan, letter days come once every three days on 5 or 10 minutes. On that plan at 20 minutes, do one row in the 10-minute slot; the 7-minute slot goes to the day's other job.

Each letter day opens with a Cold Say-Back: say the rows from your last letter day with nothing in front of you, then check them. Day 1 has nothing to say back, so those minutes go to the new letters. Log the minutes in your Mile Log.

For row 6, spell your name and your town. Then answer the questions from the table above, out loud, by spelling your name. Use the vous lines as if a stranger asked, and the tu lines as if one friend did. Say the Écrivez line aloud; it's an instruction, not a question. For row 7, spell an email address, yours or a made-up one, including the @ and leaving out the dot.

When the week is done, go on to the sounds the letters make in words. French pronunciation covers the letters you stop saying, and the French starting plan shows where the alphabet fits in your first two weeks.

Tomorrow, before you look at anything, do a Cold Say-Back: say the rows you did today, in order, from memory. Once you've done row 6, spell your name too. Check against the table on this page.