Help:IPA/French

This is the pronunciation key for IPA transcriptions of French on Wikipedia.

It provides a set of symbols to represent the pronunciation of French in Wikipedia articles, and example words that illustrate the sounds that correspond to them. Integrity must be maintained between the key and the transcriptions that link here; do not change any symbol or value without establishing consensus on the talk page first.

For an introductory guide on IPA symbols, see Help:IPA. For the distinction between , / / and ⟨ ⟩, see IPA § Brackets and transcription delimiters.

Shortcuts

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
IPA	Examples	English approximation
b	bon	about
d	deux, grande, Djibouti	today
f	faire, vif	festival
ɡ	garçon, longue	again
k	corps, avec, quand, Irak	sky
l	laisser, possible, seul	law
m	même	moo
n	nous, bonne	no
ɲ	gagner, champagne	canyon
ŋ	camping, funk	camping
p	père, groupe	spy
ʁ	regarder, nôtre	Guttural R: Scottish English loch, but voiced; Northumbrian burr
s	sans, ça, assez, soixante, six	sir
ʃ	chance, tchèque	shoe
t	tout, thé, tchèque	sty
v	vous, wagon, neuf heures	vein
z	zéro, raison, chose, deuxième	zeal
ʒ	jamais, visage, Djibouti	measure
Semivowels
j	fief, payer, fille, travail, hier	yet
w	oui, loi, moyen, web, whisky	wet
ɥ	huit, Puy	between wet and yet

Vowels
Oral vowels
IPA	Examples	English approximation
a	patte, là, femme	trap
ɑ	pâte, glas	father
e	clé, et, les, chez, aller, pied, journée	mace
ɛ	baie, faite, mettre, renne, crème, peine, violet	best
ɛː	fête, maître, reine, reître, caisse, presse, Levesque	fairy
ə	reposer, monsieur, faisons	again (often elided, see e muet)
i	si, île, régie, pays, fils	seat
œ	sœur, jeune, club (Europe)	bird (RP)
ø	ceux, jeûner, queue	burn (RP)
o	saut, haut, bureau, chose, tôt, cône	story
ɔ	sort, minimum, pomme	off
u	coup, roue	pool
y	tu, sûr, rue	roughly like Australian too
Nasal vowels
ɑ̃	sans, champ, vent, temps, Jean, taon	roughly like song; nasalized (Europe) or (Canada)
ɛ̃	vin, impair, pain, daim, plein, Reims, synthèse, sympathique, bien	roughly like hang; nasalized (Europe) or (Canada)
œ̃	un, parfum	roughly like non-rhotic burn; nasalized
ɔ̃	son, nom	roughly like drawn (Australian); nasalized (France) or (Canada)

Suprasegmentals
IPA	Example	Description
.	pays	syllable boundary
‿	les agneaux , grand-oncle	liaison

Notes

^ In European French, /ɲ/ is merging with /nj/, but in Quebec, /ɲ/ is distinguished from /nj/
^ In European French, /ŋ/ is often pronounced . In Quebec, some speakers merge it with /ɲ/ and some speakers pronounce it exactly as in English.
^ The French rhotic /ʁ/ is usually uvular, but it varies by region. For example, in Quebec, , , and are all used, but nowadays, most speakers use ʁ.
^ ^a ^b ^c In Parisian French, /œ̃/ is usually merged with /ɛ̃/, /ɑ/ is often merged with /a/, and /ɛː/ is normally merged with /ɛ/. These pairs are always distinguished in Belgian, Swiss, and Quebec French.
^ In Metropolitan French, while /ə/ is phonologically distinct, its phonetic quality tends to coincide with either /ø/ or /œ/.
^ The syllable break ⟨.⟩ is used sparingly.

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Comparisons	IPA conventions for English English dialects Wikipedia pronunciation respelling Other English pronunciation respellings
Introductory guides	Symbols For English speakers Manual of Style: Pronunciation

Notes

See alsoedit