Introduction

This Visual Dictionary For Dummies is your ideal travel companion. It can be carried conveniently and consulted quickly; all you have to do is show the picture of the thing you're talking about or of the situation you wish to describe, and presto! And since the pictures are accompanied by the corresponding English words and their French translations, you will also be able to learn a lot of new vocabulary!

Sounds, rhythm and intonation

French and English have a lot in common, including a common history. French is a Romance language descended from Latin with German and English influences, while English is a Germanic language peppered with French and Latin borrowings. Thus, they share some similarities, most notably the same alphabet and a number of true cognates - words that are the same in both French and English, such as original, final, and mental.

The sounds: the vowels

Simple vowels

In English, the vowels are divided into two groups: the so-called long or tense vowels and the so-called short or lax vowels. French has a similar system, with a few twists. For example, vowels in French are what are known as pure vowels; that is to say they are not diphthongs as in British and American English. Most English speakers pronounce the letters "a" and "e" with an extra yuh sound at the end, and their "o's" and "u's" with an extra wuh sound at the end. You must not do this in French.

The distinction between long and short vowels exists in French, but two of the English short vowels do not exist (the short "i" in did and the short "u" in put) so make sure to never pronounce these vowels when speaking French.

Here's a listing of the vowel sounds found in French:

• acheter (short a): The French sound in acheter is kind of like American English's short "o" sound, as in hot, but in French the lips are spread more widely. It may be spelled A or À (an accent grave). In one word - femme - it is spelled with an "e."

  Only three French vowels can take the accent grave: à, è, and ù. The purpose of the accent depends on the letter in question, although it generally indicates that the vowel should be short.

• pâtes (long a): This sound is pronounced with more rounded lips and is slightly elongated; it falls somewhere between the French short "a" and the "au" sound in the English word pauper.

  The accent circonflexe (here on the â) can be found on a, e, i, o, or u. It often means that, in the original Latin form of the word, the vowel was followed by the letter "s." It can be used to distinguish between two words - sur (on) versus sûr (sure), for example - or to change pronunciation.

• école (long e): The French "e" sound in école matches the sound we have for the "a" in gate. The annoying thing about the long "e" sound is that there are at least 6 different spellings for this sound in addition to the é in école:
  • er: At the end of an infinitive verb (chanter)
  • ez: Second person plural verb ending (vous chantez)
  • ez: At the end of a word (nez)
  • e (ss): At the beginning of a word (essence)
  • ed: At the end of a word (pied)
  • e (ff): At the beginning of a word (effort)

  The accent aigu (é, acute accent) can only be added to the letter "e." At the beginning of a word, "é" is usually a sort of linguistic marker, indicating that the Old French or Latin word started with es or s. For example, you can trace the French word école back to the Middle French escole and the Latin schola.

• pêche (short e): To get the short French "e" sound, just think of the "e" sound in pet. Again, the one sound has multiple additional spellings:
  • è: nouns, adjectives, and so on (mère)
  • e: before a consonant (elle)
  • ei: nouns, adjectives, and so on (reine)
  • et: at the end of a word (carnet)
  • ai: nouns, adjectives, and so on (raisin)
  • aî: nouns, adjectives, and so on (maître)
• (short i): Don't worry about the short "i" sound. It doesn't exist in French.
• petit (long i): Think ski when you want to say a long French "i" sound.
• sonner (short o): The sound of the French sonner is a good match for the short "o" sound in the English word not.
• rose (long o): The sound of the French rose is similar to English's long "o" sound as in go, but without the diphthong transition to a "w" sound at the end.
• (short u): Don't worry about the short "u" sound. It doesn't exist in French.
• loupe (long u): The long "u" sound in French closely matches the vowel sound we have in the English word boot.
• samedi (e instable or e muet/schwa): In French, words like samedi can be pronounced two ways - as a three-syllable word (sahm-uh-dee) or a two-syllable word (sahm-dee). As a three-syllable word, you have a long "a" sound in the first syllable and an unaccented schwa sound in the second syllable. ("Unaccented" here just means that you don't emphasize that syllable at all; the "schwa" sound is, believe it or not, the most common vowel sound in the English language.) For the second syllable (the schwa syllable), think of the sound in the English word uh - that word we say when we are trying to think of a word - or the last syllable in a word like banana.

Blending your words

Yes, French speakers tend to talk fast! That means words tend to blend together - you sometimes don't make a clear distinction from the end of one word and the beginning of another:

• Vowel/Vowel: When a word ends with a vowel and the following word also starts with a vowel, both vowels form two syllables, and you don't add a pause.
• For example, with the phrase Tu as un vélo ("You have a bike"), you'd say the entire phrase as if it were one word without any pauses, and the sounds of Tu as seem to merge.
• Consonant/Vowel: When a word ends with a consonant and the following word starts with a vowel, the last consonant of the first word becomes the first letter of the second word, as in Il arrive ("he arrives"), pronounced "eelareev." You link the consonant to the vowel to form a syllable.

The sounds: the consonants

Most French consonants match the sound of English exactly, but you'll need to pay particular attention to some consonants that are tricky for English speakers to pronounce.

• "c": In French, the letter "c" has two pronunciations - hard and soft. The hard pronunciation (le cadeau) uses the "c" sound found in the English word carrot. The soft pronunciation (une cerise) uses the "c" sound found in the English word ceremony. Use the soft pronunciation when the "c" comes right before an "e," "i," or "y." Use the hard pronunciation when the "c" comes right before an "a," "o," or "u."

  When a "c" precedes a hard vowel but needs a soft pronunciation (in the case of ça va?, for example), you change the "c" to a "ç" (cédille) to make the "c" soft.

• "ch": The French "ch" (chien) almost always has the "sh" sound found in the English name Sherlock. The "ch" sound in the English word cheese only occurs in words borrowed from English, like cheap and le match. The only other pronunciation you might run across is the "k" sound you find in the word le chaos - it appears in the English word chaos as well.

• "g": Just like the French "c," the French "g" has two pronunciations - hard and soft. The hard pronunciation (le gare) uses the "g" sound found in the English word gold. The soft pronunciation (gérer) uses the "g" sound found in the English word massage. Again, use the soft pronunciation when the "g" comes right before an "e," "i," or "y." Use the hard pronunciation when the "g" comes right before an "a," "o," or "u."

  When a "g" precedes an "e,"...