The French Alphabet: Every Letter, Its Name, and How to Say It

The French alphabet has exactly the same 26 letters as English, written exactly the same way. What changes is the name of each letter - and a handful of those names sound confusingly like other English letters, which is why spelling your own name in French can feel like a trap.

Below you’ll find the full alphabet with simple phonetics, the four letters English speakers systematically mishear, how to spell words aloud like a French person (accents included), and what the five accent marks actually do.

LexiFr plays native audio for every word, so you learn French sounds from real voices. Get it on the App Store or Google Play.

The French alphabet at a glance

Here are all 26 letters with the French name of each and a simple English approximation. Read the phonetics out loud once - the pattern (lots of /ay/ endings where English uses /ee/) becomes obvious quickly.

• W has the longest name - literally « double V », not double U.
• Y is called « Greek i », a nod to its origin in the Greek upsilon.
• Z is /zed/, like British English - never /zee/.

The letters English speakers mix up

Four letter names cause nearly all the confusion, because they sound like different letters in English:

The G/J swap is the famous one: the two names essentially trade places between the languages. Learn them as a pair with a hook - French G says « ay » (zhay), French J says « ee » (zhee) - and say them together every time: /zhay/-/zhee/, G-J.

Also listen carefully for U /ü/: the letter’s name is the pure French u sound that doesn’t exist in English. Say /ee/, freeze your tongue, round your lips. If someone spells a word with /ü/ and you write « ou », you’ve hit the classic beginner confusion.

Letter names are only half the story - what letters do inside words is its own system. When you’re ready, our complete French pronunciation guide covers the five rules that govern it, and common French mistakes English speakers make covers the rest of the beginner minefield.

How to spell words aloud in French (épeler)

Sooner or later you’ll spell your name on the phone in French - booking a table, talking to an administration, giving your email address. The verb is épeler (to spell), and the magic question is:

Comment ça s’écrit ? /koh-mahn sah say-KREE/ - How is it spelled?

These are the words that come up while spelling:

Accented letters are spelled by naming the letter, then the accent: é = « e accent aigu », è = « e accent grave », ç = « c cédille ».

Worked example - spelling Élise-Marie aloud:

1. É - « e accent aigu, majuscule »
2. L-I-S-E - /el/ /ee/ /es/ /uh/
3. « tiret » (hyphen)
4. M-A-R-I-E - /em/ /ah/ /air/ /ee/ /uh/, « M majuscule »

French accent marks: the alphabet’s bonus equipment

Accents don’t add letters - the alphabet stays at 26 - but five diacritics modify how letters behave:

• Accent aigu (é) - only on E; makes it /ay/: été /ay-TAY/ (summer).
• Accent grave (à, è, ù) - on E it makes /eh/ (mère, mother); on A and U it mostly distinguishes words: ou (or) vs où (where).
• Accent circonflexe (â, ê, î, ô, û) - the « little hat », often marking a lost S from old French: forêt = forest, hôpital = hospital.
• Tréma (ë, ï, ü) - splits two vowels into separate sounds: Noël /noh-EL/ (Christmas).
• Cédille (ç) - keeps C soft /s/ before A, O, U: français /frah(n)-SEH/ (French).

For the full accent-mark reference, see French accent marks explained, and for keyboard shortcuts on every system, see how to type French accents.

Is the French alphabet the same as the English one?

Yes - both use the same 26 letters of the Latin alphabet, in the same order. The differences are around the edges:

• Names: every letter is named differently (the tables above).
• Frequency: E dominates French even more than English; K and W are rare and live mostly in loanwords - le week-end, un kiwi, le wifi.
• Keyboards: France types on AZERTY, not QWERTY - A and Q swap places, M moves entirely.

How to learn the French alphabet fast

Three steps, a few minutes a day:

1. Chunk it. Learn 6 letters at a time (A–F, G–L, M–S, T–Z) rather than chanting all 26.
2. Spell real things daily. Your name, your street, your email address - aloud, in French, accents included. Spelling things you actually say beats abstract drilling.
3. Use audio for the trap letters. G, J, E, I and U need your ear, not your eyes - here’s why learning with audio works so much better from day one.

The alphabet is a one-week project at most - and it immediately unlocks spelling your name, reading French websites aloud, and understanding when someone spells something back to you. Start with the trap letters, and the rest follows.