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 Template:IPA and Wikipedia:Manual of Style/Pronunciation § Entering IPA characters.

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
IPAExamplesEnglish approximation
bbonabout
ddeux, grande, Djiboutitoday
ffaire, viffestival
ɡgarçon, longueagain
kcorps, avec, quand, Iraksky
llaisser, possible, seullaw
mmêmemoo
nnous, bonneno
ɲgagner, champagne[1]canyon
ŋcamping, funk[2]camping
ppère, groupespy
ʁregarder, nôtre[3]Guttural R: Scottish English loch, but voiced; Northumbrian burr
ssans, ça, assez, soixante, sixsir
ʃchance, tchèqueshoe
ttout, thé, tchèquesty
vvous, wagon, neuf heuresvein
zzéro, raison, chose, deuxièmezeal
ʒjamais, visage, Djiboutimeasure
Semivowels
jfief, payer, fille, travail, hieryet
woui, loi, moyen, web, whiskywet
ɥhuit, Puybetween wet and yet
Vowels
Oral vowels
IPAExamplesEnglish approximation
apatte, là, femmetrap
ɑpâte, glas[4]father
eclé, et, les, chez, aller, pied, journéemace
ɛbaie, faite, mettre, renne, crème, peine, violetbest
ɛːfête, mtre, reine, rtre, caisse, presse, Levesque[4]fairy
əreposer, monsieur, faisons[5]again (often elided, see e muet)
isi, île, régie, pays, filsseat
œsœur, jeune, club (Europe)bird (RP)
øceux, jner, queueburn (RP)
osaut, haut, bureau, chose, tôt, cônestory
ɔsort, minimum, pommeoff
ucoup, rouepool
ytu, sûr, rueroughly like Australian too
Nasal vowels
ɑ̃sans, champ, vent, temps, Jean, taonroughly like song; nasalized [ɒ] (Europe) or [a] (Canada)
ɛ̃vin, impair, pain, daim, plein, Reims, synthèse, sympathique, bienroughly like hang; nasalized [æ] (Europe) or [ei̯] (Canada)
œ̃un, parfum[4]roughly like non-rhotic burn; nasalized [œ]
ɔ̃son, nomroughly like drawn (Australian); nasalized [o] (France) or [ou̯] (Canada)
Suprasegmentals
IPAExampleDescription
.pays [pe.i][6]syllable boundary
les agneaux [lez‿aɲo],
grand-oncle [ɡʁɑ̃t‿ɔ̃kl]
liaison

Notes

See also