Essentials
L'alphabet français
Before you learn to spell new words and phrases in French, take a moment to explore the French alphabet. You will find that it looks just like the English alphabet, but the names of the letters and the sounds that they make are different. Practice pronouncing each letter by repeating after the speaker. This will help get you ready to pronounce the French names that follow. After you have reviewed the alphabet, challenge yourself: practice aloud until you can recite the entire alphabet by heart. Click the player to begin.
View a printable version of the French alphabet.
Now that you have become familiar with the French alphabet, practice writing the letters. In this interactivity, you will need to get a scrap piece of paper so that you can write down the letters that are spoken. Click the player to begin.
French Diacritical Marks
When you reviewed the French alphabet, did any of the words you used have little marks above the letters that looked like this: à â ä ç è é ê ë î ï ô œ û ü ù ? These are called diacritical marks, or accents. They are very important in French. A word that has a letter missing its accent is wrong; it can mean the difference between one word and another. For example, the word “où” means “where,” but the word “ou” means “or.” Click the player to learn more about these accent marks.
View a printable version of this interactivity.
When spelling words out loud, if a vowel has an accent on it you say the letter then the accent. For example, if you were spelling “café” out loud, you would say “C A F É, accent aigu”. If you were spelling out “père,” you would say “P È, accent grave, R, E”.
Names
Have you ever heard the song, Frère Jacques? Jacques is a French boy’s name. It is the English equivalent of James. Have you ever met a boy named Jacques? It is not a very common name in the United States, but it is very popular in France. Look at some common French names below. Click on each name to hear how it is spoken in French. Try to repeat each name aloud.
| Popular French Names | |
| Male | Female |
| Alexandre | Camille |
| Antoine | Chloé |
| Julien | Julie |
| Kevin | Laura |
| Maxime | Léa |
| Nicolas | Manon |
| Quentin | Marie |
| Thomas | Sarah |
Do you see any names that look familiar? Do you see names that are spelled just like names we use in the United States? Do you see more familiar names in the male column or the female column? How many people do you know with any of these names?