| la fille | /la fij/ | the girl |
| le fromage | /lə fʁɔmaʒ/ | the cheese |
| le garçon | /lə gaʁsɔ̃/ | the boy |
| le livre | /lə livʁ/ | the book |
| la maison | /la mɛzɔ̃/ | the house |
| le, la | /lə/, /la/ | the |
| beau, belle | /bo/, /bɛl/ | beautiful |
| nouveau, nouvelle | /nuvo/, /nuvɛl/ | new |
| est | /ɛ/ | is |
French is not always pronounced the way it is written. For example, the French word est is pronounced like the e in get. The letters s and t are not pronounced at all! You will noticed that most consonants (letters that are not vowels) are not pronounced when they are at the very end of a word.
That is why, if you intend to use French as a spoken language, it is important to learn how the words actually sound. Between slashes we show a phonetic transcription where each symbol represents a unique French sound you must pronounce. You can also click on any beige word to hear it out loud.
In French, many words, including nouns (words that represent people and things), are marked as being either masculine or feminine. On this website, to make your life easier, we always write masculine words in dark blue, and feminine in dark red.
For almost all words that describe people, e.g. la fille, le garçon, the grammatical gender will correspond to the person's actual gender. However, for most words in French, the masculine or feminine gender is a purely grammatical distinction and has absolutely nothing to do with any real gender or sex! You have to just learn it by heart or get the hang of it over time.
Depending on if a noun is masculine or feminine, you may need to use a different pronoun or ending. For example, when you want to say the in French, you will use le with masculine words and la with feminine:
| masculine | feminine | |
| the | le | la |
When you hear a word like la maison (the house), you automatically know it is feminine because the feminine word la is used.
Le garçon est beau.
/lə gaʁsɔ̃ ɛ bo/
The boy is beautiful.
Le garçon est nouveau.
/lə gaʁsɔ̃ ɛ nuvo/
The boy is new.
Le fromage est nouveau.
/lə fʁɔmaʒ ɛ nuvo/
The cheese is new.
La fille est belle.
/la fij ɛ bɛl/
The girl is beautiful.
La maison est nouvelle.
/la mɛzɔ̃ ɛ nuvɛl/
The house is new.
Le livre est nouveau.
/lə livʁ ɛ nuvo/
The book is new.
La maison est belle.
/la mɛzɔ̃ ɛ bɛl/
The house is new.
In French, pronouns like the and adjectives like beautiful must always match the noun they go with. So if you're talking about la maison (the house), which is feminine, then you need to use the feminine version of the, which is la, and the feminine version of beautiful, i.e. belle. This means that most adjectives (words that describe a noun) will come in pairs, and you will need to learn both the masculine and feminine versions.
With a masculine word like le garçon (the boy), you must always use the masculine version of the, le, and the masculine version of beautiful, beau.
Translate the following sentences to French in the box below. Then compare your answers.
| The boy is beautiful. The house is beautiful. The girl is new. The book is beautiful. The cheese is new. |
Pronunciation: /a/ /ɑ̃/ /b/ /d/ /e/ /ə/ /ɛ/ /ɛ̃/ /f/ /g/ /i/ /j/ /k/ /l/ /m/ /n/ /ɲ/ /ŋ/ /o/ /ɔ/ /ɔ̃/ /ø/ /œ/ /œ̃/ /p/ /ʁ/ /s/ /ʃ/ /t/ /u/ /ɥ/ /v/ /w/ /y/ /z/ /ʒ/ more...
List of abbreviations used
Phonetic font: Lucida Sans Unicode
