Supporting Your Child In French Immersion:
A Quick Mini lesson on French pronunciation
Trying to help your child in their reading or pronunciation of French words? Here is a quick lesson:
A Quick Mini lesson on French pronunciation
Trying to help your child in their reading or pronunciation of French words? Here is a quick lesson:
- while there are significant differences between the sounds of the vowels in the two languages, the consonants are essentially the same
- h is always silent in French
- an s at the end of a word to indicate the plural is silent
- qu sounds like k (not like kw as in quick)
- th is pronounced t
- ch is pronounced like the English sh
- i is pronounced like the long English e (bee)
- y sounds like yes event at the end of a word
- ou in French always sounds like group (not out)
- oy and oi sound like the wa in water
- au and eau have the long o sound (so)
- ez has the long a sound (way)
- accents change the sounds of vowels; e sounds much like the short English e (deck) while é sounds has the long a sound (hay)
- stress falls on the last sounded syllable (ami sounds like am-ee)
- when a word begins with a vowel (or a silent h), it is usually joined with the last consonant of the preceding word- it will sound as though your child is reading one word instead of two.