French Consonants

The French Consonants

In contrast to vowels, which you make by completely opening the vocal tract, you make consonant sounds by momentarily blocking the vocal tract while expelling air. Fortunately, there are only two consonant sounds in French that do not exist in English.

Since French and English rely on different writing systems, there is a large tendency for English speakers to mispronounce French words when reading them, so I use symbols to replace these sounds.

The Strange Consonant Symbols

In this section I will review the three consonant sounds that DO exist in English but use different symbols in IPA. Commit these relationships to memory as soon as possible.

/j/

Listen to the audio of this sound on the right. You will recognize it as the English "y" sound.
NOTE: The script "j" represents a different sound in English, but from here on out it will always represent the sound in the audio to the right.
NOTE: The script "j" represents a different sound in French, but from here on out it will always represent the sound in the audio to the right.

/ʃ/

Listen to the audio of this sound on the right. You will recognize it as the English "sh" sound.
NOTE: From here on out, this symbol will ALWAYS represent the sound in the audio to the right.

Note: The Soundcloud audio player does not recognize the /ʃ/ symbol, so it has been arbitrarily replaced with an epsilon symbol. Please disregard.

/ʒ/

Listen to the audio of this sound to the right. This is the sound we make for the "s" in the English word "measure".
NOTE: This sound is represented by the letter "j" in the French writing system, but from here on out it will ONLY be represented by the symbol "ʒ".

Even though this sound exists in English, you may have difficulty articulating it. It helps to know how the sound is made. If you take the /ʃ/ sound from before and add your voice to it (vibrate your vocal cords instead of just blowing out voiceless air) you will get this /ʒ/ sound.

The audio below shows this. Do the drill I do to develop your awareness of the /ʒ/ sound.

Semi-Vocalic Consonants

There are two consonants sounds that aren't really consonants, but need review anyway. They are called "semi-vocalic" because they are more or less vowel sounds, but they just occur quickly and at the beginning of a syllable, functioning like a consonant. Listen below to figure out what I mean.

/w/

This sound is exactly the same as the English "w" as in the word "when."
You make this sound by briefly pursing your lips so that air escapes through a narrower passage than usual.
It is essentially a fast /u/ vowel at the beginning of a syllable.

/ɥ/

This sound is similar to /w/ except you purse your lips even more.
It essentially a fast version of the rounded /y/ vowel at the beginning of a syllable.

The New Consonant Sounds

There are two consonant sounds that do not exist in exist in English. We will review them below.

/ɲ/

Like /m/ and /n/ this is a nasal consonant, which means that you must completely block the oral passage so that air leaves ONLY through the nose.
You create this blockage by raising the back of your tongue against the roof of your mouth (hard palate).
Note that you do not use the tip of your tongue. You will have a tendency to hear this sound as an /n/ sound and thus place the tip of your tongue against the back of the gums - do NOT do this.

/ʁ/ and /X/

These sounds use a part of your speech organ called the "uvula" (pictured below). This is never used in English.

Because we never use the uvula, these sounds/movements will be the most challenging ones for you to master on your road to French Flow mastery.

Don't worry though, as you can learn any motor skill with proper practice.

For now, we will just review a few key points.

You make this sound by raising the back of the tongue against OR near the uvula.
It can be Voiced OR Voiceless (i.e. your vocal cords will either vibrate or not vibrate).
The /ʁ/ represents voiced and the /X/ represents voiceless.
English speakers have a tendency to replace this sound with an English "r" sound, as in the word (roar). Do NOT do this. While you work on perfecting the sound, replace it with whatever throaty sound you can muster.

Remaining Consonants

Below is a list of the remaining consonant sounds in French. Note: these sounds are pronounced exactly as they are in English writing so there should not be any ambiguity.

m
p
b
f

n
t
d
s

z
l
k
g

Congratulations! You're now introduced to every possible French sound. I know it was a lot of information and you probably weren't able to completely absorb it all. But that is completely fine. This Primer is more of a reference than anything else.

As you gain more experience with the French sounds, your mental framework will start to take form and you will revisit these pages with a better understanding. So don't let this be the last time you check out the sound system primer.

Once you are comfortable with everything on this page, review the IPA symbols on The Phonetic Notation Key