French pronunciation, explained through songs
8 short lessons on how French actually sounds — the sounds a learner's ear misses and why. Each one lists the songs where you can hear it.
French writes more than it says
By default the final consonant is not pronounced. That is the rule, not the exception.
The final -E is silent too, and so is the plural -S and the verb ending -ENT: by ear, a singular and a plural verb form can be identical.
The ones that usually do sound at the end are c, r, f and l.
This song's words are below: read them and count how many letters you cannot hear.
Hear it in: Alors on danse (Stromae) · Djadja (Aya Nakamura) · Seine Saint-Denis Style (Suprême NTM)
The nasal vowels, and the N that vanishes
A vowel followed by N or M at the end of a syllable goes nasal: the air leaves through the nose and the consonant is NOT pronounced.
There are three of them, and mixing one up with another changes the word.
If you hear the N as a separate consonant, it is no longer nasal: doubling the consonant, or putting a vowel after it, cancels the nasalisation.
This is the sound that identifies French from the first word, and the one foreigners miss most.
Hear it in: Désenchantée (Mylène Farmer) · Quelqu'un m'a dit (Carla Bruni)
Liaison: the consonant that comes back
A silent final consonant comes back to life before a vowel, and attaches to the next word as if it belonged there.
That is why French sounds like one long word: the boundaries between words move as you speak.
Some liaisons are compulsory, some forbidden, and many optional — in a song the melody usually decides.
A liaison S or X is pronounced Z, and a liaison D is pronounced T.
Hear it in: J'en ai marre (Alizée) · Voyage, voyage (Desireless)
U and OU are two different vowels
These are two separate sounds, and they tell real words apart: confusing them makes you say something else.
For OU, round the lips and say an ordinary «oo», tongue back.
For U, say «ee» and round the lips WITHOUT moving the tongue. The tongue stays forward: that is the whole trick.
English has no U like this, which is why it has to be built on purpose.
Hear it in: Dernière danse (Indila) · Maladie (Cheveux blonds) (Mauvais djo)
The R is made at the back of the throat
The French R is not tapped with the tongue tip: it is made right at the back, with the uvula, like a very light scrape.
The tongue stays low and still; if it rises and trills, that is a Spanish or Italian R, and it is heard immediately.
Between vowels it is softer; at the end of a word after a consonant it can almost disappear.
English speakers tend to substitute their own R, which is made in a third place again — neither will pass.
Hear it in: Balance ton quoi (Angèle) · Ma philosophie (Amel Bent) · Ne me quitte pas (Jacques Brel)
The silent E, and the one you keep
An unaccented E at the end of a word is not pronounced. It is why a word written with three syllables has only two when spoken.
Inside a word or a phrase that E often drops too — hence the impression that French swallows half of what it writes.
But in a song it comes back: the melody needs the syllable, and the singer pronounces it where nobody would say it.
That is why lyrics do not scan the way you read them.
Hear it in: Moi... Lolita (Alizée) · Sexy Nana (Aya Nakamura & La Rvfleuze) · Toi + Moi (Grégoire)
Accents change the sound, not the stress
Unlike Spanish or Italian, a French written accent does NOT say where to hit: it says what sound the vowel has.
The acute closes the E, the grave opens it, and the circumflex usually marks an S that vanished centuries ago.
On A and U the grave changes nothing about the sound: it only tells two identically spelled words apart.
The diaeresis says the vowel is pronounced separately from the one before it.
Hear it in: Comme des enfants (Cœur de pirate) · Sicario (Timal)
OI is not read the way it is written
The two letters O and I together give neither an O nor an I: they give a sound that starts with a W.
It is one of the most misleading spellings in French, because each letter on its own sounds like something else.
With an N after it, the same group goes nasal and changes again.
This song's words that use it are below: read them aloud without looking at the spelling.
Hear it in: Je veux (Zaz) · La Vie en Rose (Édith Piaf)
Practise it with the songs
Inside the app every lesson comes with exercises, example sentences and conjugation tables built from the songs you study.