The second half of the French sound kit: the tight French u (round your lips, say "ee"), the two e-accents ay and eh, the uh of eu, ch saying "sh" and gn saying "ny". With these plus Lesson 3, the say-it key used across this whole course is in your hands.
| French | English | Say it |
|---|---|---|
| utu (tew) — round lips, say "ee" | the French u — "ew" | ew |
| él’été (lay-TAY) | says "ay" | ay |
| è / ê / aila mère (lah MEHR) | says "eh" | eh |
| eudeux (duh), two | says "uh" | uh |
| chle chat (luh SHAH), cat | says "sh" | sh |
| gnla montagne (lah moh(n)-TAHN-yuh), mountain | says "ny" | ny |
| j / soft gje (zhuh), I | says "zh" (as in vision) | zh |
Respellings follow the course’s say-it key; the stressed syllable is in capitals. Print this lesson’s flashcards (PDF) — the words on the front, the English and respelling on the back.
Each word is read twice — say it back in the gap. Computer-generated voice; credits on the course page.
tu (you) and tout (all) are different words separated only by this pair. For the French u, round your lips as if for "oo" and say "ee" through them — the respelling writes it "ew".
Every respelling in this course is built from Lessons 3 and 4. When a new word appears, its respelling will already read naturally — and when you meet a French word in the wild, you can work backwards from its letter teams.
This free course is the reading half. The writing half — write-in lessons, daily practice pages with built-in review, self-checks and a full answer key — is the companion workbook series, The French Ladder: one workbook per module, fifteen in all, released band by band with the Basic band (Modules 1–5) first.
Turn this lesson’s words into flashcards, then space your reviews — the two habits the research behind our study guides backs hardest.
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