Help:IPA/French

The charts below show the way in which the International Phonetic Alphabet (IPA) represents French language pronunciations in Wikipedia articles. For a guide to adding IPA characters to Wikipedia articles, see {{IPA-fr}}, {{IPAc-fr}} and .

French has no word-level stress so stress marks should not be used in transcribing French words. See French phonology and French orthography for a more thorough look at the sounds of French.

Consonants IPA Examples English approximation b bon about d deux, grande today f faire, vif festival ɡ garçon, longue again k corps, avec sky l laisser, possible, seul loo m même moo n nous, bonne no ɲ gagner, champagne canyon ŋ camping, bingo camping p père, groupe spy ʁ regarder, nôtre Guttural R, roughly like Scottish English loch s sans, ça, assez sir ʃ chance shoe t tout, thé, grand-oncle sty v vous, wagon, neuf heures vein z zéro, raison, chose zeal ʒ jamais, visage measure Semivowels j fief, payer, fille, travail yet w oui, loi, moyen, web, whisky wet ɥ huit, Puy like a simultaneous wet and yet

Vowels Oral vowels IPA Examples English approximation a patte, là trap ɑ pâte, glas bra e clé, les, chez, aller, pied, journée hit ɛ baie, faite, mettre, renne, crème, peine best ɛː fête, maître, mètre, reine, reître, caisse, presse, Lemaistre, Lévesque fairy ə reposer, monsieur, faisons again (often elided, see e muet) i si, île, régie, y bee œ sœur, jeune roughly like bird ø ceux, jeûner, queue roughly like bird o saut, haut, bureau story ɔ sort, minimum off u coup, roue too y tu, sûr, rue roughly like few Nasal vowels ɑ̃ sans, champ, vent, temps, Jean, taon roughly like on; nasalized [ɒ] or [ɑ]; rendez-vous ɛ̃ vin, impair, pain, daim, plein, Reims, synthèse, sympa, bien roughly like man; nasalized [æ] or [ɛ]; coq au vin œ̃ un, parfum roughly like burn; nasalized [œ] ɔ̃ son, nom roughly like long; nasalized [o] or [ɔ] Suprasegmentals IPA Example Description . pays [pe.i] syllable boundary ‿ les agneaux [lez‿aɲo] liaison