The French alphabet and pronunciation
French uses the same 26 Latin letters as English, plus accent marks: é, è, ê, ë, à, â, ç, î, ï, ô, û, ù, ÿ, and the ligatures œ, æ. Spelling looks intimidating because French keeps a lot of letters it no longer pronounces — once you accept that final consonants are usually silent and that vowel combinations make a single sound, the rules click. Don't try to memorize the alphabet today; pick up the letters by meeting real words like bonjour and merci.
The accent marks
é (accent aigu) is a sharp 'ay' sound: café = ka-FAY. è and ê (accent grave / circonflexe) are an open 'eh': mère (mother) = mehr, être (to be) = ETR. ë and ï (tréma) tell you to pronounce the vowel separately from its neighbor: Noël = no-EL. ç (cédille) is just a soft 's' before a/o/u: ça = sa, français = fran-SAY. à, â, û, ô rarely change the sound much — they're often historical.
Silent final letters
French routinely drops the final consonant: Paris = pa-REE (no 's'), vous = voo (no 's'), et = ay (no 't'), petit = puh-TEE. The letter e at the end is also silent: table = TABL, France = frahns. The final consonant comes back if it's followed by a vowel — that's called liaison — but you can ignore that detail for now.
Vowel combinations
ou is always 'oo' as in 'food': bonjour = bohn-ZHOOR, vous = voo. au and eau are 'oh': au revoir = oh ruh-VWAR, eau (water) = oh. oi is 'wah': moi (me) = mwah, trois (three) = trwah. ai and ei are 'eh': maison (house) = meh-ZOHN. eu is roughly 'uh': peu = puh.
Nasal vowels
When a vowel is followed by n or m at the end of a syllable, it becomes a single nasal sound — the n/m itself doesn't get pronounced as a consonant. Three main flavors: on (as in bon, bonjour) = a deep 'ohn'; an / en (as in France, enchanté) = a wider 'ahn'; in / un (as in vin, un) = a tighter 'ahn' through the nose. Don't worry about distinguishing them perfectly today — just notice the buzzy, nasal quality.
Consonants worth knowing
h is always silent: hôtel = oh-TEL. j is the soft 'zh' of 'measure': je (I) = zhuh, bonjour = bohn-ZHOOR. r is made in the back of the throat — closer to a soft gargle than the English r. qu is just 'k': qui (who) = kee. ch is 'sh': chat (cat) = sha. Final -er verbs sound like 'ay': parler (to speak) = par-LAY.
