French Pronunciation Generator. IPA Transcription Translator (2024)

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How to use this French IPA translator and pronunciation generator

Introduction

This phonetic translator will help you obtain very accurate phonetic transcription of your French text.

It uses the symbols of International Phonetic Alphabet (IPA) — the most popular phonetic transcription system in the world.

Here's how this tool works:

First, the algorithm attempts to find the word in our database with pronunciations of French words. The database contains more than 77,000 words, including 22,000 proper nouns.

The pronunciation of each word in the database was manually checked by a member of our team.

If the word cannot be found in the database, the translator uses a very complex set of pronunciation rules to convert the word into phonetic transcription.

On the last step, the algorithm looks at the surrounding words and updates the phonetic transcription accordingly. These pronunciation changes at word boundaries are called liaison in French. See more details below.

If you need to copy the phonetic transcription into another program or print it, please read our FAQ.

Watch a tutorial "How to convert text to phonetic transcription and listen to audio recordings of words"

High-quality computer-generated audio

You can easily create audio for your text using this pronunciation generator. Listen to the voice samples below.

Text-to-speech service is provided by the following companies:

• Google
• Amazon
• Microsoft

Each time you generate an audio, we have to pay one of these companies.

Text-to-speech service is only available with the subscription Premium.

Audio and video recordings of real people (native French speakers)

We hired professional voice-over artists to record the correct pronunciation of the most popular French words. The number of the audio recordings is indicated in the following table. Click the buttons to listen to the sample words.

Find more sample words in our interactive IPA chart for French.

Number of audio recordings in our French pronunciation generator

Christine	37,600 words
Christine
Charles	2,500 words
Charles Charles

Audio recordings of real people are available with the subscriptions Basic and Premium.

Video recordings of real people are only available with the subscription Premium.

Multiple pronunciations of French words

Some French words are spelled the same, but are pronounced differently and have different meanings. They are called hom*ographs. Compare:

The phonetic translator will highlight hom*ographs in green. If you hover your cursor over these words or tap them on your mobile device, you will see all possible pronunciations.

At the moment this phonetic translator cannot yet decide which pronunciation is correct for such words. You will need to choose the correct pronunciation yourself depending on the context.

Pronunciation variants (when native speakers from different regions pronounce a word differently, or when the pronunciation changes in rapid speech) are highlighted in blue. Just like with hom*ographs, you can also hover your cursor over the word to see all possible variants or click/tap it to select the right pronunciation.

Translation to your native language

This pronunciation generator allows you to obtain an automatic translation of your text to your native language.

Automatic translation service is provided by a third-party company (Google). Each time you translate text into another language, we have to pay Google a small fee.

Translation service is only available with the subscription Premium.

Create your own custom word lists

You can create your own custom word lists using this phonetic translator. Here's how you can do it:

1. For the setting Transcription display options select the option "transcription above each word".
2. In the section Choose what you will see when you click the word turn on the option " to word list".
3. After submitting your text, click on the word you want to add to the word list and then click the button " to word list".
4. You will be prompted to select the transcription and enter the meaning/translation of the word (the latter for most languages is optional).
5. Once you finished adding words to your word list, click on My Account at the top of the page and then on My word lists. You will see the list of all your word lists.

There are so many things you can do with your word list:

1. export it to a file (Word, Excel, plain text),
2. print it from your browser,
3. share it with other people (for example, your students),
4. practice pronunciation of every word using the audio recordings of real people (if available) or high-quality text-to-speech voices.

Watch a tutorial "How to create custom word lists"

Case-sensitive converter

We wanted to create a very precise tool, so we decided to make this phonetic converter case-sensitive. For some words, it makes a difference. For example, the French words Paris and paris mean different things and may be pronounced differently depending on the context.

If you want to obtain the best results, please submit the French text which is spelled correctly. Misspelling the words (montréal, MERCI) may give unpredictable results.

How to use the setting "Edit transcription"

Sometimes you may want to suggest a better transcription for a word. Here's how you can do:

1. For the setting Transcription display options select the option "transcription above each word".
2. In the section Choose what you will see when you click the word turn on the option "Edit transcription".
3. After submitting your text, click on the word which transcription you want to correct and then click the button Edit transcription.
4. If you are suggesting a different transcription for a word that can already be converted, there's one additional step. Go to My Account. Click on Customize my experience and turn on the option I want to suggest changes in the transcription for the words that can already be converted.

In any case, the new transcription will only be visible to yourself. We will add an option to see the transcriptions submitted by other users later.

How to use the setting "Hide transcription"

Some people prefer to hide the phonetic transcription of the most common words in order to make the text less cluttered. Here's how you can do it:

1. For the setting Transcription display options select the option "transcription above each word".
2. In the section Choose what you will see when you click the word turn on the option "Hide transcription".
3. After submitting your text, click on the word which transcription you want to hide and then click the button Hide transcription.

Next time you submit the text, the transcription of this word will not be displayed.

If you want to undo this action, go to My Account. Click on Customize my experience and go to the section Undo the action Hide transcription.

Liaison in French

In French most final consonants are not pronounced. For example:

• les livres /le livʁ/

However, in some cases they may or should be pronounced. For example:

• les amis /lez‿ami/

This is called liaison. There are two types of liaison in French - mandatory and optional.

Mandatory liaison

In this type of liaison final consonants should be pronounced. The translator handles such cases pretty well:

• nous avons /nuz‿avɔ̃/
• elles en achètent /ɛlz‿ɑ̃n‿aʃɛt/
• prenez-en /pʁənezɑ̃/

You can choose how the final consonants will be displayed:

1. les amis /lez‿ ami/
2. les amis /le‿ zami/

In order to do so, go to the section Advanced options. For the option Liaison choose either transcribe words one by one or final consonant may move to the next word.

Note that the translator will show the links to audio recordings based on the word's transcription, not on its spelling. In the example above if you choose the first option, you will see a link to the audio recording for "ami". However if you choose the second option, you will not see any links, since there are no words in French with transcription /zami/.

Optional liaison

In this type of liaison final consonants may or may not be pronounced. It depends on the speech style (formal or informal), level of education and other factors. For example:

• j'avais été
  /ʒavɛ ete/ or /ʒavɛ‿ zete/
• des amis agréables
  /de‿ zami aɡʁeabl/ or /de‿ zami‿ zaɡʁeabl/
• nous attendons encore
  /nu‿ zatɑ̃dɔ̃ ɑ̃kɔʁ/ or /nu‿ zatɑ̃dɔ̃‿ zɑ̃kɔʁ/

The phonetic translator almost never shows optional liaison.

Vowel lengthening at the end of words

The phonetic translator can add an elongation symbol [ː] after long vowels at the end of a rhythmic group. The rules for vowel lengthening are the following:

1. All vowels (oral and nasal) become long if followed by the final consonant cluster /vʁ/ or the final single consonant /ʁ/, /z/, /v/, /ʒ/:
   /vʁ/ ➔ livre [liːvʁ], chanvre [ʃɑ̃ːvʁ]
   /ʁ/ ➔ faire [fɛːʁ], vinrent [vɛ̃ːʁ]
   /z/ ➔ française [fʁɑ̃sɛːz], onze [ɔ̃ːz]
   /v/ ➔ peuvent [pœːv]
   /ʒ/ ➔ usage [yzaːʒ], ange [ɑ̃ːʒ]
2. The oral vowels /ø/, /o/, /ɑ/ and all nasal vowels become long when followed by any single consonant or a consonant cluster:
   /ø/ ➔ émeute [emøːt], neutre [nøːtʁ]
   /o/ ➔ chaude [ʃoːd], autre [oːtʁ]
   /ɑ/ ➔ basse [bɑːs], plâtre [plɑːtʁ]
   /ɑ̃/ ➔ France [fʁɑ̃ːs], attendre [atɑ̃ːdʁ]
   /ɔ̃/ ➔ monde [mɔ̃ːd], rompre [ʁɔ̃ːpʁ]
   /ɛ̃/ ➔ mince [mɛ̃ːs], peintre [pɛ̃ːtʁ]

Highlighting of high-frequency French words

In the section Advanced options you will find a special option that allows you to highlight high-frequency French words. The words from different frequency intervals will be highlighted in the following colors:

If you want to make the frequency analysis of your text and obtain the detailed statistics, please use French word frequency counter.

Learning French as second language: phonetic transcription can help you improve your French pronunciation

French pronunciation can be confusing for people who are just starting to learn French. Think about it – one French letter can be pronounced in two or three different ways, and three to four letters can be pronounced as one sound! The pronunciation rules in the French language are extremely complex and contain many exceptions.

This tool will serve you as an French pronunciation guide and will help you save time. You will no longer need to look up the pronunciation of words in a dictionary.

If you use the phonetic transcription regularly in combination with French audio and video recordings, your pronunciation and listening skills in the French language will improve.

Do you learn or teach French?

We know sometimes French may seem complicated. We don't want you to waste your time.

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French pronunciation dictionaries that we recommend

Some of the dictionaries listed below are not really pronunciation dictionaries, but just regular French dictionaries. However we used all of them extensively when we were proofreading our database with pronunciations of French words.

• Dictionnaire de la prononciation française dans sa norme actuelle, 1987
• Robert French Dictionary Complete and Unabridged edition

Check our French phonetic subtitle converter and obtain something like this:

Greetings from the developer Timur

Find out how to activate your brain and learn faster (4 min.)

Timur Baytukalov. A Complete Guide to Language Learning. Part 1: Learning Pronunciation

Free Webinar "Learning French pronunciation the smart way" (25 min.)

To develop this translator, we used information from different sources mentioned on this page. The phonetic transcription was taken from these sources in accordance with the Copyright Act of Canada (Paragraph 29, Fair Dealing for the purpose of education).

Alphabetical list of all words with audio or video recordings

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