Transcript:

Bonjour and welcome to this French Sounds for Beginners Audio Guide!

If you’re just starting to learn French — or you’ve been learning for a while but still feel unsure of how to pronounce French words — this guide is for you.

Many beginners feel nervous speaking French out loud. And for most of them, pronunciation becomes the number one struggle.

But here’s what most don’t realise, yet:

👉 Pronunciation starts with the sounds.

The reason so many learners feel stuck with their pronunciation is that they skip that first important step.

They dive straight into grammar or vocabulary — but without a clear understanding of how French actually sounds, everything feels confusing and frustrating.

If you’ve just come across my little corner of the internet — enchantée! 👋 I’m Mathilde, a native French teacher and host of the French Made Easy podcast (with over 6 million downloads). I help beginners speak French more clearly and confidently, step by step.

In this guide, I’ll show you:

• Why pronunciation often feels tricky at first

• What the main French sounds are

• And how to take your first steps to pronounce them correctly.

Let’s get started!

❌ Why Most Beginners Skip Pronunciation

Let’s be honest — most beginners don’t start with pronunciation.

Not because they don’t care, but because they assume it will “just come later.” So they focus on grammar or vocabulary first.

And by the way — grammar and vocabulary are super important! But pronunciation often gets pushed aside (especially in classrooms) because there’s not enough time to teach it properly.

Here’s the problem with that: when pronunciation is skipped, it doesn’t magically improve on its own.

You might know the word on paper, but saying it out loud — or recognising it when a French speaker says it — becomes much harder.

Why? Because in French, what you see isn’t always what you hear. Spelling and pronunciation don’t always match.

So if you're not familiar with the sounds of French, it's easy to feel unsure or even afraid speaking French out loud.

That’s why I always recommend my students to start with the sounds — it’s the foundation. You first need to understand what you’re hearing — and what you’re trying to say.

So let’s look at the first piece of the puzzle: the main sounds of French.

🧩 The First Piece of the Pronunciation Puzzle

So if you can’t hear or pronounce those sounds clearly, it becomes harder:

• to pronounce French correctly

• to understand spoken French

• and to feel confident when speaking French.

So — before anything else — you need to get familiar with the main sounds of French.

There are 4 types of sounds

• Vowel Sound  → like /i/, /e/, /u/…

• Nasal Vowel Sounds → /ɑ̃/, /ɔ̃/, or /ɛ̃/

• Semi-Vowel Sounds → like /j/, etc

• Consonant Sounds → like /t/, /ʃ/, /l/, etc.

Each sound has:

• a symbol (called IPA symbol — International Phonetic Alphabet, it sounds scary but it’s just a system of symbols that shows you how a sound is pronounced — no matter how it’s spelled.

• a few common spellings (how it’s written in words)

So… where should you begin?

Now that you know the 4 types of sounds — and why they matter — the next step is learning how to actually practise those sounds.

Let’s go through it together:

How to Practise the Sounds (Step by Step)

Here’s a simple 4/5-step method that you can follow to make sure you are pronouncing French sounds properly— even if you’ve never said a French word out loud before:

To begin, you’ll need a French IPA chart — one that includes:

• Audio for each sound (so you can hear how it’s pronounced)

• Example words (so you can connect the sound to its spelling)

You can find an IPA chart for French online, otherwise I’ve got one for you (more on that later.)

Then, follow this process:

• Pick one sound to start with. Let’s start with the sound [u] (found in words like tout, nous, sous…)

• Listen to the sound on your chart a few times. Get use to it and start repeating out loud.

• Then listen to the example word (tout) for the sound you are studying and repeat it out loud. Don’t worry about getting the pronunciation of the sound perfect. For now, the goal is just to hear and repeat. We’ll worry about pronunciation mechanics later.

• While you’re hearing the example word, I also want you to notice the spelling. For [u], it’s often written as “ou” (as in “tout”)

• Repeat the sound [u] and the example word “tout” a few more times until it starts to feel natural.

Once you’re more comfortable with a sound on its own and in words, let’s move on to practicing that sound a few times in simple sentences.

For the purpose of this guide, let’s stick with the sound [u].

Here’s a simple sentence in French:

→ “Bonjour, quelle est la soupe du jour, s’il vous plaît ?”

You’ll hear the [u] sound in: “bonjour”, “soupe”, “jour” and “vous.”

So first, listen to that sentence while reading it at the same time.

→ “Bonjour, quelle est la soupe du jour, s’il vous plaît ?”

Then I want you to repeat it slowly, repeat it a few times and try to match my natural rhythm and flow.

This will help you practise each sound and its pronunciation in context.

Now it’s time to take it one step further — and record yourself. Not many people do it, but I highly, highly recommend doing it, and it might feel strange and a little bit confronting at first to hear your voice, but it’s one of the best ways to improve. Don’t skip that step!

Here’s how to do it:

• Choose a sentence you’ve been practising (“Bonjour, quelle est la soupe du jour, s’il vous plaît ?”)

• Record yourself pronouncing that sentence (your phone is perfect for this)

• Listen back to your recording and compare with the original recording.

By doing that, you’ll start to notice:

• Which parts sound clear

• Which sounds need a little bit more work

This makes you more aware of your own pronunciation — and helps you adjust more quickly.

Now that you’ve identified a few tricky sounds, it’s time to learn how to actually produce these sounds. That’s the mechanics of pronunciation.

Let’s take the [u] sound again (like in tout, vous, bonjour) and let’s learn how to pronounce that sound correctly.

To pronounce [u] correctly:

• Round your lips tightly (as if blowing out a candle)

• Keep your tongue at back of your mouth, it should not be touching your teeth.

Try it a few times in front of your mirror — then pronounce it in words:

→ vous [vu]

→ bonjour

→ soupe [sup]

Those little adjustments with your lips, mouth, tongue, can make a big difference in how clearly you’re understood.

You might as well be aware of all the most common mispronunciations that beginners make, so you don’t make them yourself. In French, some sounds are really close to each other — and very easy to mix up.

One common pair, that I briefly touched upon before, is the [u] vs [y].

You’ll find the sound [u] in words like in tout, vous, bonjour.

You’ll find the sound [y] in words like in tu, lune, musique.

For the sound [u], your lips are rounded tightly as if you’re blowing out a candle, and your tongue is NOT touching your teeth.

For the sound [y], your lips are still rounded as if you’re blowing out a candle, but your tongue is this time touching your bottom teeth.

A very small difference in the position of the tongue can completely change a sound.

And that small pronunciation difference, can change the whole meaning of a word, so that also affects what your saying.

For example, tu [ty] = you and tout [tu] = everything. Two different words, very similar pronunciation!

If you can’t hear the difference yet. That’s totally normal. Your hearing will improve with time and practice.

And yes, there are a lot of other pair like [y] and [u]. For example: [e] vs [ε], [ø] vs [œ], [o] vs [ɔ]…

In my experience, after 6 years of teaching and giving pronunciation feedback to my students, there are 16 pairs of sounds that I very commonly hear get mixed up, I teach them in one of my products, the French Sounds Starter Kit, that I will talk to you about in a few moments.

A Quick Reminder

Before we wrap up, I also want to remind you of something that I find very important. Even though it’s my job to help you improve your French pronunciation, I want you to remember that you don’t need a PERFECT pronunciation. I want everyone to really understand that I’m not there to teach you to speak like a “native” speaker, and that I don’t subscribe to that idea at all.

What you need though, is clarity. You need to speak clearly enough to be understood by French speakers — and to feel good and confident doing it. Not like someone who has spent their whole life in France.

And another thing that I want to leave you with is that learning and improving your French pronunciation takes time, repetition, and curiosity. It doesn’t happen overnight.

But if you practice consistently — even 5 minutes a day, an hour a week — I promise you that you’ll start to:

• Hear the sounds more clearly

• Say words with more ease

• And feel more confident when you speak

So be patient with yourself — you’ve already taken the a big step today.

What to Do Next

So now you know that studying French sounds is priority number 1 when it comes to learning and improve your French pronunciation. You’re already one step ahead.

And if you'd like some help implementing everything that we’ve talked about today — without wasting time searching online for resources — I’ve created a starter kit to guide you, so you’ve got everything you need to get started on your pronunciation journey.

Let me introduce you to… ⬇️