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H:IPAFR

The charts below show the way in which the International Phonetic Alphabet (IPA) represents French pronunciations in popflock.com resource articles.

English approximations are in some cases very rough and intended to give only a general idea of the pronunciation. See French phonology for a more thorough look at the sounds. For information on how to convert spelling to pronunciation, see French orthography.

French has no word-level stress so stress marks should not be used in transcribing French words. See here for details.

Consonants
IPA	Examples	English approximation
b	bon	about
d	deux, grande	today
f	faire, vif	festival
?	garçon, longue	again
k	corps, avec	sky
l	laisser, possible, seul	loo
m	même	moo
n	nous, bonne	no
?	gagner, champagne	roughly like canyon
?	camping, bingo^[1]	camping
p	père, groupe	spy
?	regarder, nôtre^[2]	roughly like loch (Scottish English) but voiced, like "gh" in Scottish Gaelic
s	sans, ça, assez	sir
?	chance	shoe
t	tout, thé, grand-oncle	sty
v	vous, wagon, neuf heures	view
z	zéro, raison, chose	zeal
?	jamais, visage	measure
Semivowels
j	fief, payer, fille, travail	yet
w	oui, loi, moyen, web, whisky	wet
?	huit, Puy	like a simultaneous wet and yet

Vowels^[3]
Oral vowels
IPA	Examples	English approximation
a	patte, là	trap (modern RP and Northern English)
?	pâte, glas^[4]	bra
e	clé, les, chez, aller, pied, journée	hey
?	baie, faite, mettre, renne, crème, peine	best
?:	fête, maître, mètre, reine, reître, caisse, presse, Lemaistre, Lévesque^[4]	red
?	reposer, monsieur, faisons^[5]	again (often elided, see e muet)
i	si, île, régie, y	bee
oe	soeur, jeune	roughly like bird
ø	ceux, jeûner, queue	roughly like bird
o	saut, haut, bureau	go (Scottish English)
?	sort, minimum	off
u	coup, roue	too
y	tu, sûr, rue	no English equivalent; somewhat like few
Nasal vowels
	sans, champ, vent, temps, Jean, taon	roughly like on (American English), nasalized [?] or [?]. rendez-vous
	vin, impair, pain, daim, plein, Reims, synthèse, sympa, bien	roughly like man (RP); nasalized [æ] or [?]
oe?	un, parfum^[4]	roughly like burn; nasalized [oe]
	son, nom	roughly like bone (American English); nasalized [o] or [?]

Suprasegmentals
IPA	Example	Explanation
.	pays [pe.i]^[6]	syllable boundary
?	les agneaux [lez?a'?o]	liaison^[7]

Notes

^ In European French, /?/ is often pronounced [], but in Québec, it is merged with /?/.
^ The French rhotic /?/ is usually uvular, but it varies by region. For example, in Québec both [r] and [?] are used, depending on both region and age.
^ Nasal vowels are lengthened before any consonant, but oral vowels are lengthened before [v, ?, z, ?].
^ ^a ^b ^c In Parisian French, /oe?/ is usually merged with //, /?/ with /a/ and /?:/ with /?/. The pairs may be distinguished in Belgian, Swiss and Canadian French and in some regions of France or among older speakers.
^ /?/ is frequently pronounced as [ø]. See e muet for more information.
^ The syllable break ⟨.⟩ is used sparingly.
^ In liaison, the latent final consonant is pronounced before a following vowel sound, but s and x are voiced and pronounced [z], and d is unvoiced and pronounced [t].

External links

French Phonetic Transcription Converter--Free Online Tool to convert French Text to IPA Phonetic Transcription

[1] In European French, /?/ is often pronounced [], but in Québec, it is merged with /?/.

[2] The French rhotic /?/ is usually uvular, but it varies by region. For example, in Québec both [r] and [?] are used, depending on both region and age.

[3] Nasal vowels are lengthened before any consonant, but oral vowels are lengthened before [v, ?, z, ?].

[merger-4] In Parisian French, /oe?/ is usually merged with //, /?/ with /a/ and /?:/ with /?/. The pairs may be distinguished in Belgian, Swiss and Canadian French and in some regions of France or among older speakers.

[5] /?/ is frequently pronounced as [ø]. See e muet for more information.

[6] The syllable break ⟨.⟩ is used sparingly.

[7] In liaison, the latent final consonant is pronounced before a following vowel sound, but s and x are voiced and pronounced [z], and d is unvoiced and pronounced [t].

[1]

[2]

[3]

[4]

[5]

[6]

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