The final piece: how French sounds, and how to turn your grammar into marks. This lesson covers silent final consonants and verb endings, liaison, nasal vowels, the key graphemes (ou, u, oi, au/eau), accents, and exam skills — the dictée, reading aloud, gap-fill, translation both ways, and those tricky faux amis.
Work through each screen and answer the questions as you go — some ask you to recognise the right form, some ask you to produce it by typing. Collect ⭐ stars and press Start.
French usually does not pronounce a final consonant. The word looks longer than it sounds:
A memory aid: the consonants that are often sounded at the end are in the word CaReFuL — c, r, f, l — as in avec, bonjour, chef, parc. Most others go silent.
The regular -er verb endings -e, -es and -ent are all silent — so several forms sound identical:
This is why listening tasks give you context to work out the subject, and why writing tasks reward you for spelling the ending correctly even though it isn't heard.
Exam trap: in a dictée or gap-fill, you must still write the right ending. Ils parlent and il parle sound the same but only one fits the subject.
When a normally-silent final consonant meets a following vowel, it wakes up and links across — this is liaison:
Why it matters: in reading aloud, liaison makes you sound natural and earns pronunciation marks. The linking consonant is only heard before a vowel.
French has vowels pronounced partly through the nose. The spelling usually ends in n or m:
| spelling | example |
|---|---|
| an / en | grand, en |
| on | bon, bonbon |
| in / ain / ein | vin, pain, plein |
| un | un, brun |
Key point: the n is not a separate sound — the vowel itself is nasalised. on in bonbon is one nasal vowel, not "o" + "n".
French letter-combinations map to fixed sounds. Pick the right one.
Learn these fixed sound-spellings — they unlock reading aloud and the dictée:
| spelling | sound (example) |
|---|---|
| ou | /u/ — nous |
| u | /y/ — tu |
| oi | /wa/ — moi |
| au / eau | /o/ — beau |
| ai / ei | /ɛ/ — maison |
| gn | /ɲ/ — montagne |
| ch · qu · -tion | /ʃ/ chat · /k/ qui · /sjɔ̃/ nation |
Careful with u vs ou: tu (/y/, rounded lips) is a very different sound from nous (/u/, "oo"). Mixing them changes the word.
Accents are not decoration — they change pronunciation and, in the dictée, they count:
The two h's: h is always silent (muet), and usually allows elision (j'habite). But an aspirate h blocks liaison and elision: le héros (not l'héros).
Is the final letter silent, or heard? Remember CaReFuL (c, r, f, l) is usually pronounced.
Two tasks reward accurate sound-spelling knowledge:
Quick wins: in the dictée, listen for a nasal vowel to decide between an / en / on; and for reading aloud, mark where liaison happens before you speak.
Tap a French word on the left, then tap its true English meaning on the right.
These look like English words but mean something else — a classic translation trap:
| French | really means (not…) |
|---|---|
| librairie | bookshop (library = bibliothèque) |
| actuellement | currently (actually = en fait) |
| sensible | sensitive (sensible = raisonnable) |
| assister à | to attend |
| rester | to stay (not "to rest") |
| journée | day |
In translation: never assume a look-alike matches its English. Je reste à la maison = "I stay at home", not "I rest at home".
Two tasks reward careful grammar, not guessing:
Word-for-word fails: "I am 15" is j'ai 15 ans (I have 15 years), not je suis 15. Translate the idea, not the individual words.
Silent letters: most final consonants are silent (petit, grand, vous); CaReFuL (c, r, f, l) are usually heard.
Silent endings: parle = parles = parlent — but you must still spell the right ending.
Liaison: a silent final consonant links before a vowel — les_amis, vous_avez.
Graphemes: ou=/u/, u=/y/, oi=/wa/, au/eau=/o/, gn=/ɲ/; é=/e/ vs è/ê=/ɛ/; silent h allows elision (j'habite).
Exam: dictée = accurate spelling & accents; reading aloud = liaison & silent endings; translate the idea, respect word order.
Faux amis: librairie=bookshop, actuellement=currently, sensible=sensitive, assister à=to attend, rester=to stay, journée=day.
That's the whole grammar spine complete — sound like a native and turn it into marks. Press Finish to see your score.
You've completed sounds & exam technique — the final cluster of the AQA GCSE French grammar spine. 🎉
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You've now worked through all ten grammar clusters. Lock it in with the Evaluate confidence quizzes and keep practising out loud.