Why does french have silent letters

In French, subjects and verbs must agree depending on the conjugation of the verb and the person of the noun. For example, if you wanted to conjugate the verb parler to speak with the subject il he , you would have to drop the -er from the infinitive and add -e.

This -e, however, is not pronounced. The ending letters that are not pronounced but are added for verbal agreement are bolded. Nouns and adjectives must also agree depending on gender and number. For example, if I have the word hibou and I want to make it plural, I would add an — x to make hiboux owls.

This letter does not get pronounced, however. Further, a surprisingly number of nouns will add an —e to make a noun feminine. For example, the masculine word avocat lawyer has a silent final t. The feminine version is avocate. Ironically, the added -e is not pronounced, but because it was added, it actually makes the t pronounced in the feminine word. Talk about confusing! Annoyed yet? Worry not. Here are three online spell-checkers you can use to check your spelling: Bon Patron , Reverso and JSpell.

Further, you can test your spelling ability with fun spelling games like these. Take some time to let these silent letters settle in, and then keep your eyes open for them as you digest French content. She now lives in the United States where she is an active member of the francophone community and never misses an occasion to share her culture. Please log in again. The login page will open in a new tab. After logging in you can close it and return to this page.

Follow Us Now. Table of Contents. The Silent French Letter -e. Silent Letter H. Final consonants in French. Why does French have so many silent letters? Is the letter R silent in French? When it is placed at the end of a word, you can usually count it out, although some French speakers with a regional accent may pronounce it:. As a rule of thumb, the last letter of a word ending in c, r, f, l, b, k or q is pronounced.

Which French silent letters do you think are the trickiest? Share it with us in the comments! No, the letter R is audible. In fact, if a word ends with R, make sure to pronounce it.

For instance, the word h ibou. The letter -h is not silent if it is part of a letter combination like ch or ph at the beginning of a word in French.

Watch this video to learn how to pronounce the silent letter H in French. Silent consonants are common in French. Almost every letter can be silent except j and v. These nasal consonants when final or preceding a consonant ordinarily nasalize a preceding vowel but are not themselves pronounced.

There are some exceptions. For example, the final consonant -c in the word donc is not silent. It is pronounced in French. When a word ends with the French consonant -p, the -p is not pronounced, and once again it is a silent letter in French.

Final -ent is silent as a third-person plural verb ending, though it is pronounced in other cases:. There are some exceptions that you need to know. The letters -d and -t are pronounced at the end of the following French words:. However, there are some words that end with the letter -s and in which the letter -s is pronounced. Here are some examples:. There are some expectations where the letter -z is pronounced at the end of a word, for example, le gaz.

To learn more about the rules around the pronunciation of the letter S in French go check out the associated article When does S Sound like Z in French? Watch this video to discover the cases where the consonant is pronounced and the cases where the consonant is a silent letter. This generalization has a few exceptions, but I find it helpful to remember the word C a r e F u L. As for the exceptions, you should know that the final -l is usually silent after the letter -i like in:.

Final consonants that might be silent in other contexts finally or before another consonant may seem to reappear in pronunciation in liaison. Note that any consonant followed by the letters -e or -es are pronounced at the end of a word. The letter -e itself is usually not pronounced, it only signals the pronunciation of the preceding consonant.