Checkpoint: The French Alphabet

Nineteen letters you can now write and name

From A to S you now know nineteen letters: their shapes, their French names and their sounds. You also know the rules that make French readable: é closes, è opens, a bare e is weak or silent; c and g are hard before a, o, u and soft before e, i, and the hook of ç makes c soft anywhere; s buzzes between vowels while ss stays clean; h is written but never heard; q always brings its u; n after a vowel sends the vowel through the nose; and the r lives in the throat. Read the two tables below aloud from top to bottom: that is the beginning of the alphabet song French children learn.

The pair to keep apart. The accent aigu RISES to the right and the sound is closed: café, école. The accent grave FALLS to the right and the sound is open: père, mère, élève. Letter first, accent second.

Two letters with two faces. Before a, o, u they are hard: café, gare. Before e, i they soften: c becomes s (ceci), g becomes the soft j sound (girafe). The vowel that follows decides, never the consonant itself.

The letter you never hear and the letter that never walks alone. h: two posts and a bar, written in hôtel and silent. q: the round part, then the post on the right below the line, and always a u after it: quatre.

un café à la garea coffee at the station

le sac de la mèrethe mother’s bag