LinguaThe end of a French word is quiet
In English nearly every written letter is heard. In French the last consonant of a word is usually written but not said: petit ends in the sound “ti”, grand in “gran”, trop in “tro”, français in “sè”, deux in “deu”, nez in “né”. The plural -s and -x are silent too, so petit and petits sound exactly the same: you hear the plural in the article, le against les, never in the noun. A silent letter is not useless. It is the memory of the word’s family – petit gives petite, grand gives grande – and it comes back to life in liaison, which is the next lesson.
| Silent final letter | Words | Note |
|---|---|---|
| s | français, anglais, trois, petits | the plural -s as well |
| t | petit, étudiant, salut, et | the t of et (and) never sounds |
| d | grand, froid, pied | silent, but heard as t in liaison |
| x, z | deux, yeux, nez, chez | x is the other plural mark |
| p | trop, beaucoup | the two most common p-words, both silent |
Deux étudiants anglais et trois étudiants français.Two English students and three French students.
CAREFUL: c, r, f and l usually sound
The exception to the silence fits in one English word, CAREFUL: a final c, r, f or l is normally pronounced – sac, avec, hiver, bonjour, neuf, chef, sel, hôtel, il. One trap inside the trap: -er at the end of a verb or of a longer noun is not an r sound but “é” – parler, boulanger, premier. Short words keep their r: hiver, mer, cher. So the reading rule is short: hide the last consonant, unless it is one of c, r, f, l.
| Final letter | Words | Sound |
|---|---|---|
| c | sac, avec, parc | heard: “k” |
| r | hiver, bonjour, mer | heard: the French r in the throat |
| f | neuf, chef, œuf | heard: “f” |
| l | sel, hôtel, il | heard: “l” |
| -er | parler, boulanger, premier | the exception: “é”, no r |
The e that wakes up the consonant
Add a final e and the silent consonant comes alive: petit ends in “ti”, petite ends in “tit”. This is how French shows the feminine to the ear: grand / grande, étudiant / étudiante, français / française, anglais / anglaise, froid / froide. The e itself is silent; its whole job is to make the letter before it heard. Between two vowels an s buzzes like a z, so française ends in “-èz”. The same signal works in any word: vite, rose, heure – a final e always means “say the consonant before me”.
| Masculine | Feminine | What the e wakes up |
|---|---|---|
| petit | petite | the t |
| grand | grande | the d |
| étudiant | étudiante | the t |
| français | française | the s, said as z |
| froid | froide | the d |
Marie est française et Tom est anglais.Marie is French and Tom is English.
The h that is never heard
h is a written letter with no sound of its own. Hiver, heure, hôtel, homme begin, to the ear, with a vowel: “iver”, “eur”, “otel”, “om”. That is why they take l’ – l’hiver, l’heure, l’hôtel, l’homme – and why a liaison can cross them: deux heures is “deu-zeur”, les hommes is “lé-zom”. A handful of words of foreign origin have an h aspiré that blocks the liaison and the elision – le haricot, le héros – but they are rare, and a dictionary marks them with a small sign.
Words in this lesson
| Word | Meaning | Example |
|---|---|---|
| petit | small, little (feminine: petite) | Le petit garçon a un vélo. The little boy has a bike. |
| grand | big, tall (feminine: grande) | Le père de Léa est grand. Léa’s father is tall. |
| français | French (the language; as an adjective, feminine: française) | Le pain français est très bon. French bread is very good. |
| anglais | English (feminine: anglaise) | Tom est anglais et il habite à Londres. Tom is English and he lives in London. |
| étudiant | student (male; female: étudiante) | Paul est étudiant à Lyon. Paul is a student in Lyon. |
| étudiante | student (female) | Léa est étudiante à Paris. Léa is a student in Paris. |
| beaucoup | a lot, much | Il y a beaucoup de photos. There are a lot of photos. |
| trop | too much, too | Le café est trop chaud. The coffee is too hot. |
| hiver | winter | En hiver, il fait froid. In winter it is cold. |
| heure | hour; o’clock (feminine) | Le cours est à dix heures. The class is at ten o’clock. |
| homme | man | C’est un homme très grand. He is a very tall man. |
| froid | cold; avoir froid: to feel cold | Le lait est froid. The milk is cold. |
Exercises
This lesson has 10 exercises in the app:
- multiple choice: 3
- match the pairs: 1
- fill the gap: 2
- build the sentence: 1
- translate the sentence: 2
- listen and type: 1
Try the first one
In which of these words do you actually hear the final consonant?
The answer, the other exercises, the audio and your progress are in the app – free at A0 and A1.