A1 · Alphabet and pronunciation
Stress
The stress falls on the last syllable you can hear.
In English every word has its own stress, and it can fall anywhere: “photograph”, “photography”, “photographic”. French is far simpler — the stress goes on the last spoken syllable: café, chocolat, photo, université. A silent -e at the end does not count: salade is stressed on -lade, and table has only one spoken syllable.
The stress belongs less to the single word than to the group of words: what belongs together is said without a break, and only the last syllable of the group stands out. In un café the stress is on -fé; in un café au lait it moves to the end, onto lait.
The stress is also much lighter than in English. Every syllable gets roughly the same time, and none is swallowed — English squeezes the unstressed vowels of “chocolate” almost to nothing, French gives each syllable of chocolat its due. Accent marks have nothing to do with stress: é, è, à show the sound or the spelling, never where the weight goes. école is stressed on its second syllable, not on the é.
The form
| stress on the last syllable | café, chocolat, université |
| a silent -e does not count | salade, table, France |
| in a word group: at the end | un café au lait |
| an accent mark is not stress | école, téléphone |
| unlike English “camera” | caméra |
The rules one by one
The form this topic is about
The stress goes on the last spoken syllable of a word.
café, chocolat, universitécoffee, chocolate, university
A silent -e at the end is not counted.
la salade, la tablethe salad, the table
In a group of words only the last syllable carries the stress.
un café au laita white coffee
Accent marks never show the stress.
l’école, le téléphonethe school, the telephone
How to spot it
- café
- chocolat
- école
Example sentences
Je voudrais un café.I would like a coffee.
Je voudrais un café au lait.I would like a white coffee.
Elle étudie à l’université.She studies at the university.
Le restaurant est fermé.The restaurant is closed.
The trap English speakers fall into
Watch out
Say French words with English stress and you put it at the front: “PA-ris”, “CA-me-ra”, “RES-tau-rant”. That does not only sound foreign, it makes words harder to recognise, because a French listener expects the weight at the end. And anyone who takes an accent mark for a stress mark will say école with the weight on the é — it belongs at the end, on -cole.
The stress sits at the end — accent marks have nothing to do with it.
Your turn
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