Does the French alphabet have more letters than the English one?

No – exactly the same twenty-six. Accented letters are not separate letters: é, è and ê are all filed under e in a dictionary. The ligatures œ (sœur, cœur) and æ (rare, as in et cætera) are written as one character but count as o + e and a + e; on a keyboard without them, oe and ae are accepted.

Why do French words end in letters you never hear?

Because the spelling kept the old pronunciation while speech moved on. Those letters still carry meaning for the eye: the -s of the plural, the -e of the feminine, the -ent of they. And they come back in liaison, when the next word begins with a vowel: petit ami, vous avez.

Which French does the course teach?

A neutral French understood everywhere in the French-speaking world, with the differences pointed out where they matter – septante and nonante in Belgium and Switzerland, the words you will hear in Quebec, and the gap between what is written and what is said.

The French alphabet: 26 letters, five accents

The same letters as English – and a different set of rules for turning them into sound.

French uses the twenty-six letters of English, no more and no fewer. What is added are the five accents – aigu (é), grave (è à ù), circonflexe (ê â î ô û), tréma (ë ï ü) and the cédille (ç) – and the two ligatures œ and æ. An accent is not decoration: it changes the sound (é against e in parler, parlé) or tells two words apart (a has, à to; ou or, où where; sur on, sûr sure).

The second thing to learn is that French rarely reads letter by letter. Pairs and triples stand for one sound: ou (vous), oi (moi), eu (deux), au and eau (beau), an, en, on, in (grand, pain), ch (chat), gn (montagne). And most final consonants fall silent: petit, grand, nez, parler all end in a letter you never hear – except when the next word begins with a vowel and the liaison brings it back (les amis, sounds like lezami).

Handwriting follows the same stroke order as English, so the chart below is mostly a map of sounds – tap a letter to hear it, to see it written and to trace it. The A0 level of the course walks through every letter, the five accents, the ligatures and the letter pairs, with audio, for free; A1 opens with greetings and the first verbs.

The chart

Tap a character to watch it being written and to trace it yourself.

Letters

Accents and ligatures

Treat accents as spelling, not as ornament. Write a/à, ou/où, sur/sûr correctly from the first week and you will never unlearn it.
Assume a final consonant is silent, then learn the exceptions: c, r, f and l are often heard at the end (sac, bonjour, chef, animal), but not in the verb ending -er.
Read short texts aloud and listen for the joins. Liaison is what makes French sound like one long word, and it is learned by ear, not by rule.

The lessons that teach it

The A0 level of the course, free: the letters, their sounds and the first words, with the same stroke animations and tracing exercises.

The French Alphabet

Writing the letters, the vowels that change with an accent, and the first words.

Sounds and First Words

The last letters, the letter pairs French reads as one sound, and the endings nobody pronounces.

The whole course: Learn French together

Questions

Does the French alphabet have more letters than the English one?: No – exactly the same twenty-six. Accented letters are not separate letters: é, è and ê are all filed under e in a dictionary. The ligatures œ (sœur, cœur) and æ (rare, as in et cætera) are written as one character but count as o + e and a + e; on a keyboard without them, oe and ae are accepted.
Why do French words end in letters you never hear?: Because the spelling kept the old pronunciation while speech moved on. Those letters still carry meaning for the eye: the -s of the plural, the -e of the feminine, the -ent of they. And they come back in liaison, when the next word begins with a vowel: petit ami, vous avez.
Which French does the course teach?: A neutral French understood everywhere in the French-speaking world, with the differences pointed out where they matter – septante and nonante in Belgium and Switzerland, the words you will hear in Quebec, and the gap between what is written and what is said.