Les mots apparent6s

Can you understand the follow.ing sentences?

Le train artive i, Paris A 3 heures.

M6lanie dine au restaurant.
Philippe yisite le mus6e d'Art moderne.
Madame Masson est professeur i. I'Universit6 de Grenoble.
Le professeur est intelligent et dynamique.

Even if you have nor had any French before, it is quite likely rhat you were able to
guess the meanings of the above sentences.

words that look alike in French and English and have similar meanings
i are called cognates, or mots apparent6s.
Paying attention to these words wilr help you understand French.
l

Here are some cognates that you saw in the dialogue on page 20. Note that al-
though tLtey are spelled differently in French, tley are easy to recognize.
la musique vietnamien Ia famille un examen
la guitare ' I'universit6 danser alg6rienne
Ffere are some ad,ditional cognates you will recognize:
lecin6ma Ie sport Ia violence les spaghetti Ie chocolat
, lat6l6vision l'effort I'ordre le brocoli les oranges
Ia politique la discipline Ie d6sordre le caf6 les abricots

'"?' Cognates are never pronounced.the same way in French and English. Chances
are that if you had never heard French before, you might not have been able
to understand the meanings of the preceding examples when spoke n by a
French person.

+!o Sorne words that look alike in French and English actttally have very different
meanings. Note these two common examples:
Ie colldge junior high schoot (not cottege)
Ia librairie boohstore (not lihrary)

As you study French, you will learn to watch out for these false cognates, or
faux amis (literally, friends ! )
.false

En ville (In toun) You are showing your city to a group of exchange srudenrs
from Belgium.
A i'h6tel Yoici I'hbtel.
1; le caft 4. ie garage 7. Ia pharmacie
I la poste (post office) Ie cin6ma 8. I'h6pitai
3. ie parc 6. Ie mus6e 9, l'universit6
 L'alphabet frangais

A /d/' G /39/ M /em/ s I es/ Y /i grek/

B /be/ H 1a)/ N /en7 T /te/ z /zed/
t/ / se/ T /i/ o /o/ U /y/
D /de/ J /3i/ P /pr/ v /ve/
E /a/ K /kal o /kY/ w /dubla ve/
F tpft L /el/ R / er/. x /iks/

Les lettres muettes (Silent letters)

Sorne letters in French are not pronounced, especially when they come at the end of a
rvord. The following letters are r-rsr-rally silent:

Itnal -e Philipp/ SyLvi{ Anniy'

linal -s Loui/ Nicola/ Charle/

other final consonants Richarl Rober/

EXCEPT -c, -1, -1, -k Marc chef PauI Patrick
and usually -r Victor BUT: Roge/ Ol:ie/

hin allpositions h{enri THomas NatEalie

Photos You're showing photos of the students you met in Qu6bec last year.
Tell your friend who they are.

1. Eric
2. Yves
3. Nathalie
4. Louis
5. Louise
6. Nicolas Robert
7. H6ldne Denis
8, Jean LaBrie
9. Edith Hamel
10. Anne-Marie Ledoux
11. Marthe Thibaud
12. Albert Lecas
13, Thomas Castel
14. Michei Leduc
15. Isabelle Lebas
 I

Phqqetic notations

French sounds are divided into three categories: vowels, consonants and semi-vowels.
Each sound corresponds to a phonetic symbol (from the phonetic international alphabet).
Knowing the correspondence between the sounds and their phonetic symbols helps us not
only disiinguish French sounds from one another but also pronounce them befter.
Heie are thi phonetic symbols corresponding to the French sounds'

Tableau ll Les ronr du frangak: l'alphabet phon6tlque lnternatlonalr

[i] ici [p] popier [] yeux

[e]b€bi lbl b6b6 lql lui
[e] belle [t] tentotive [w] lou6

lal papa [d] Dordogne

[o] pdte [k] coquille
lyl tu [g] gorille
lol peu [j foce
lel peur lvl ave
[uJ tout [s] solle
[o] trop [z] zodioque
[r] donne fi chiche
[a] le [3] giton
[E] vfn fll les

[6] dans lrl rare

[5] bon [m] mormite
lGl un [n] nonne
lpl vigne
[0] porking

Les marques orthographiques (Spelling marks)

Accents and spelling marks ar€ part of the spelling of a word and cannot be left out.

Accents and spelling marks With the lette6 Examples

' l'accent ziga (aade accmt) c C6cile, Fr6d6ric, caf6

' l'accent grave (graae accent) &,li,rI Michdle, voill, or&
^ Iiaccent circonflexe (ciratm/bx) d. e, \ otu mAle, for6t, diner, h6tel, str
" NoEl, naif
:

le tr6ma (dirrais) 6ri

. la c6dille (ud'ill^a) I Franqois, frangais, gal gon

NOTES DE PRONONCIATION
1, 6 is pronounced /e/'
i and 6 are pronounced /e/
6 is pronounced /o/
g is pronounced /s/