It provides a set of symbols to represent the pronunciation of French in Wikipedia articles, and example words that illustrate the sounds that correspond to them. Integrity must be maintained between the key and the transcriptions that link here; do not change any symbol or value without establishing consensus on the talk page first.
French has no word-level stress so stress marks should not be used in transcribing French words. See French phonology and French orthography for a more thorough look at the sounds of French.
↑In European French, /ɲ/ is merging with /nj/, but in Quebec, /ɲ/ is distinguished from /nj/.
↑In European French, /ŋ/ is often pronounced [ŋɡ]. In Quebec, some speakers merge it with /ɲ/ and some speakers pronounce it exactly as in English.
↑The French rhotic/ʁ/ is usually guttural (uvular), but it varies by region. For example, in Quebec, [ʁ], [r], and [ʀ] are all used, but nowadays, most speakers use [ʁ]. This sound may also be devoiced to [χ] in certain contexts; see French phonology §Consonants for details.
123In Parisian French, /œ̃/ is usually merged with /ɛ̃/, /ɑ/ is often merged with /a/, and /ɛː/ is normally merged with /ɛ/. These pairs are always distinguished in Northern, Belgian, Swiss, and Quebec French.
↑In Metropolitan French, while /ə/ is phonologically distinct, its phonetic quality tends to coincide with either /ø/ or /œ/.
123In Quebec, /i/, /u/, and /y/ may be laxed before a consonant:
