How to Learn French When Spelling Hides the Sound

What goes into your first two weeks?

The same three jobs as any language, filled with French. They take turns. If you pick French, the planner on the main plan page, under "Lay out your 90 days," lays out the dates.

These splits are a House routine, untested with learners. Each day opens with a Cold Say-Back: say something from an earlier day with nothing in front of you, then check it. Day 1 has nothing to say back, so those minutes go to the first job. Log the minutes in the Mile Log.

Here's how the first days could run at 10 Spoken Minutes:

1. Day 1, letters and sounds. The first two rows of the French alphabet week, A to I and J to R, all 10 minutes.
2. Day 2, word pairs. 2 minutes saying A to R from memory, then 8 on vu (seen) and vous (you). They have different vowels. Vu, /vy/, has the vowel of tu: round your lips and keep your tongue forward. Vous, /vu/, keeps the lips round and pulls the tongue back. Say each word alone, then both. The French pronunciation page has the lip guide. The minimal pairs tool has more French pairs, such as vin (wine) and vent (wind).
3. Day 3, first sentences. 2 minutes on the pair, cold, then 8 on your name and the two ways to ask someone else's, below.
4. Day 4 starts the turn again with the next two rows of the alphabet week.

At 5 or 10 minutes, the seven rows of the alphabet week fill the letter days 1, 4, 7 and 10: rows 1 and 2, then 3 and 4, then 5 and 6, then row 7. Nasal vowels and the r come after it. At 20 minutes, a letter job is one row in the 10-minute slot, and the 7-minute slot goes to the day's other job. Silent endings, linking and stress wait until after day 14, one fix at a time. That order is a House routine.

If you're learning Spanish or German instead, their first weeks have their own pages: Spanish and German.

Which letters do you stop saying?

Most consonants at the end of a word. FREN 140, an open pronunciation course from Palomar College, says most final consonants are silent. A final e with no accent mark is usually silent in longer words, but FREN 140 says the e of a one-syllable word such as je, le, de or ne is said. For now, take this as a preview; the timed practice for endings comes after day 14. Say this pair and listen for the d:

In both lines, the t of est is silent. In grand, /ɡʁɑ̃/, the d is silent. In grande, /ɡʁɑ̃d/, the e after it is silent, and that e is why the d is said.

FREN 140 gives a memory word for the consonants that are usually said at the end: CaReFuL, for c, r, f and l. It's a shortcut with holes. The r of an -er verb such as parler (to speak) is silent, and so is the r of most longer words ending in -er. Some words break the rule in both directions, so when a new word ends in a consonant, check how it's said before you learn it. FREN 140 also notes that in some southern French cities, such as Marseille, the final e is said.

The French pronunciation page has the full set, with the exceptions.

How do French words run together?

Often with no break. A silent final consonant can come back when the next word starts with a vowel sound. This is called a liaison. In Vous avez raison. (You're right.), the s of vous is said as a z, joined to avez.

FREN 140 says some liaisons are required, some are optional, and some are never made. Two rules cover your first sentences:

• After les and before a noun that starts with a vowel, always make it, as in les enfants.
• Between a pronoun such as vous or nous and a verb that starts with a vowel, always make it: a z in vous avez, none in vous parlez. Between a noun and its verb, never: in FREN 140's example les étudiants aiment (the students like), there's still a z between les and étudiants, but none before aiment.

An h needs care. FREN 140 says a mute h counts as a vowel, so you link in les hôtels. An aspirated h doesn't: no z in les héros, and it's le héros, not l'héros. The French pronunciation page has more.

The rest you can pick up line by line. This site's House routine is to learn each liaison inside the whole sentence you met it in, not as a rule on its own.

Some short words also lose their e. Je plus ai is written j'ai. In speech, some speakers drop more. FREN 140 says Je ne sais pas. (I don't know.) can come out with no e in je or ne, depending on the region, how formal the talk is and the speaker's diction. In Marseille, it says, that e is said. Say the full form while you're starting, and notice the short one when you hear it.

French also puts the stress at the end. Français interactif, an open course from the University of Texas at Austin, says the stress falls on the last syllable of the whole phrase, not of each word. FREN 140 adds that speakers can still stress another word to make a point.

Say Je nage. (I swim.), then Je nage à la mer. (I swim in the sea.), with the beat on nage the first time and on mer the second.

What about nasal vowels and the r?

Both need their own practice, and the r and nasal vowels page gives it. Here is the short version from FREN 140:

• Nasal vowels. When a vowel is followed by n or m at the end of a word, or before another consonant, the vowel is nasal and you don't say a separate n or m. So vin has no n sound. When a vowel follows the n or m in the same word, you say it, as in bonne. Links between words and odd words such as ennui are on the r and nasal vowels page. FREN 140 says speakers in the north of France hear three nasal vowels, while the south of France and Quebec keep a fourth.
• The r. It's made far back, a bit like gargling, with the tip of your tongue touching your bottom teeth. FREN 140 teaches the Paris r. It also says the rolled r, made with the tongue tip, was once common in southern France and Quebec and is now heard mostly from older and rural speakers there.

Which French to copy depends on who you'll talk to. This site uses the standard French of France as its model and notes other regions where its sources do. If your tutor or friends speak the French of Quebec or southern France, copy them.

Should you say tu or vous?

Both mean "you." Français interactif says tu is for friends, family and children, and vous shows politeness, formality and distance. It's the form for any formal situation. Wiktionary gives tu as "you" for one person and vous also as "you all," so for more than one person, friends included, use vous. Learn the question both ways:

Answer with your own name: Je m'appelle Hugo. When you're not sure which one fits, this site's House routine is to start with vous.

For the first conversation on day 30, the main plan has you prepare three sentences about yourself. These lines are a start. Say them cold in the days before.

What can wait until later?

The charts. You'll meet French grammar from day one, inside whole sentences, and that's enough for the first two weeks.

1. Verb tables. Say je m'appelle and vous avez as whole lines for now. When you want the full set, the conjugation lookup has it.
2. Articles. Little words like du and de la will turn up in your sentence cards from days 15 to 45. Learn them inside the line, and read French articles when you want the rules.
3. The two past tenses. From day 46, the plan has you work on one grammar point at a time. The choice between passé composé and imparfait is a good first one.
4. The subjunctive. The plan holds it until late, and the French subjunctive page is there when you get to it.

Leaving these out isn't a claim that they don't matter. Some tables do need memorizing later. If you need to read French for work, or you have an exam date, your list will look different.

Tomorrow, before you look at anything, do a Cold Say-Back of today's job: the letter rows, vu and vous, or the two ways to ask a name. Skip anything you haven't done yet. Check them against this page and the alphabet page.