French Consonant Sounds

Abstract

Abstract A consonant is classified in linguistic terms by three criteria: place of articulation (dental, velar, etc.), manner of articulation (plosive, fricative, affricate, etc.), and whether it is voiced or unvoiced. In this chapter, each French consonant phoneme is examined by these criteria. Remarks are given for all French consonant phonemes, and include comparisons between English, Italian, and German near-equivalents. The regular French spellings of each consonant sound are listed, as well as details about the phonemes, which include narrow transcriptions using diacritics. Three particularly challenging concepts are treated: mute h vs. aspirated h, pronounced vs. silent consonants, and how to handle the French r: the flipped/rolled apical variant vs. the uvular variant (known in French as r grasseyé).