French pronunciation generator: hear any word or phrase

Type French and hear it said with a Parisian or Canadian French accent, liaison and nasal vowels included. Free, no sign-up.

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How to pronounce French words

For longer French audio and more voices, see French text to speech. To spell out an English word by sound, use the phonetic spelling generator.

Type French

Type or paste up to 500 characters of French, or pick a sample. Keep the accents on é, è and ç: they change the sound.

Press play

Listen to the whole phrase, then pick a sample to hear one hard sound on its own.

Compare voices

Pick another voice from the menu and press play again to hear the same French from a different speaker.

French sounds that trip up English speakers

French spelling follows rules, but several of its sounds have no English match. Type any example below into the box to hear it.

Nasal vowels

A vowel followed by n or m at the end of a syllable is usually said partly through the nose, and the n or m goes silent. Un bon vin blanc has four of them.

bon [bɔ̃] · vin [vɛ̃] · blanc [blɑ̃]

Liaison

A final consonant that is normally silent is said when the next word starts with a vowel sound. Les alone is [le], but les amis joins up with a z.

les amis [le.z‿a.mi] · vous avez [vu.z‿a.ve]

The u in tu

French u is an ee said with rounded lips. English has no such vowel, and saying oo instead gives you a different word: tu is you, tout is all.

tu [ty] · tout [tu] · rue [ʁy] · roue [ʁu]

The French r

The r is made at the back of the throat, close to a light gargle, not with the tip of the tongue.

rue [ʁy] · Paris [pa.ʁi] · grenouille [ɡʁə.nuj]

Silent endings

Most final consonants and a final e are not said. Petit ends on the i, and the -ent of ils parlent is silent.

petit [pə.ti] · ils parlent [il paʁl] · beaucoup [bo.ku]

Custom French pronunciation for developers

Loanwords have more than one accepted reading. Wi-Fi can be said the French way or the English way, and a pronunciation dictionary pins the one your customers use for every request.

A pronunciation dictionary is a list of words and how to say each one. Cartesia swaps every match for its sounds-like spelling before the text is read, on sonic-3 and newer.

Get an API key Read the pronunciation guide

pronunciation-dictionary.json

// Create the dictionary once, through the API or the Playground.
[
  { "text": "Wi-Fi", "pronunciation": "oui-fi" }
]

// Then pass its ID with each text-to-speech request.
{
  "model_id": "sonic-3",
  "language": "fr",
  "pronunciation_dict_id": "<your dictionary ID>"
}

Pronunciation in other languages

All languages

Arabic pronunciation

ع and ح, the heavy consonants and long vowels, read aloud from Arabic script.

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Chinese pronunciation

The four tones, tone changes and retroflex sounds, in a Mandarin voice.

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German pronunciation

Umlauts, ich and ach, and z, in a Standard German voice.

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Italian pronunciation

Double consonants, gli and gn, read by an Italian voice.

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Japanese pronunciation

Kanji and kana read aloud, with long vowels and small tsu, in Standard Japanese.

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Korean pronunciation

Plain, tense and aspirated consonants and the sound changes between syllables.

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Polish pronunciation

Sz and ś, cz and ć, rz and ł, and the nasal ą and ę.

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Portuguese pronunciation

Nasal ão, the Brazilian t and d, and the r, in a Brazilian voice.

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Spanish pronunciation

Rolled r, ñ and the jota, in a voice from Mexico or Spain.

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French pronunciation FAQs

How do you pronounce French words correctly?

Type the word into the generator above and press play to hear it in a Parisian or Canadian French voice. Then check the three rules that change most words: nasal vowels before n or m, silent final consonants, and liaison before a vowel.

Is there a free French pronunciation tool?

Yes. The generator on this page reads any French text up to 500 characters aloud, free and with no account.

How do you pronounce croissant in French?

[kʁwa.sɑ̃], roughly krwah-SAHN. The r comes from the back of the throat, the final an is a nasal vowel, and the t is silent. Type croissant into the generator to hear it.

Can I hear Canadian French pronunciation?

Yes. Pick Étienne or Josette in the voice menu, who speak Canadian French, and press play again. Henri and Inès speak Parisian French, so you can compare the same sentence in both.

Can I download the French audio?

Yes, with a free Cartesia account. Make an MP3 or WAV of the same text in the Cartesia Playground, or request it from the text-to-speech API.

Can Cartesia read longer French text?

Yes. Cartesia's text-to-speech model speaks 44 languages. For voiceovers and apps in French, see the French text to speech page.

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