As many expats and visitors in Paris know, it’s disheartening to speak your very best French to a French native and only to receive a look of confusion—or pain—in return.
We want to say two things about this. First, having an accent is natural. If you didn’t learn French as a child, you will likely speak it with some influence from your mother tongue. So, don’t feel shame over your accent or let it prevent you from speaking French with natives.
Second, you can minimise your mother tongue accent and speak more like a native French speaker with practice. You won’t necessarily speak flawlessly, but you don’t have to. The most important thing is to speak with a clean enough accent that can be effortlessly understood by natives.
Here’s what you need to do:
1. Control Your Lips and Tongue for Clearer French
When learning French, one of the biggest challenges is retraining how your lips and tongue move. In English, our mouths make wide, shifting movements because the language is full of diphthongs (two vowels blended, like in “house” or “owl”). French, however, uses pure, single vowels—shorter and more precise.
To sound more natural, keep your tongue still and move it much less than in English. A helpful trick is to rest the tip of your tongue against your lower front teeth. Then, let your lips, jaw, and even nose do the work. For example, purse your lips for most “e” sounds, stretch them into a smile for “i”, and round them for “u” and certain “o” sounds.
Practising in front of a mirror is a great way to check your mouth movements. With consistency, you’ll notice your accent sounding smoother and more authentically French.
2. Practice French in groups of sounds
When learning to read French, schoolchildren here have a cahier de sons (notebook of sounds), which teaches them how to connect the written letters with the spoken sound—not a self-evident thing in the French language! You can practice improving your French accent in the same way—by mastering individual sounds in groups.
For example, for one week, you may want to focus on saying words that contain the letters “ou” (pronounced “oo” or like the sound in “soup”). During this week, you would practice saying words like rouge, vous, pour, fou, bijoux, etc., until you can produce the “ou” sound naturally. Afterwards, move on to another sound group.
In particular, you may want to concentrate on French sounds that don’t exist in English, such as:
– eu (veulent, feu, peu)—Don’t pronounce the “u” but only the “e” sound
– u (jus, nu, dessus) is similar to the “ew” sound in English. Say with rounded lips.
– r (roux, rue, répéter) – pronounced from the back of the throat with minimal tongue tip movement.
3. Read aloud in French
Choose an interesting text in French and read it aloud to yourself slowly, taking the time to consciously produce each word. This will force you to think about each word you’re pronouncing and is great training for your tongue and mouth. It has the extra benefit of helping you absorb French grammar, sentence structure and flow. You should also record yourself while reading so you can listen to your speech and work on the sounds that are giving you particular trouble. A useful hack is to read children’s books or short dialogues. The language is simple, but pronunciation practice is powerful.
4. Listen to spoken French
To master an accent, naturally, you must know what the correct accent sounds like. Don’t forget to devote regular time to listening to French, either through audio recordings or by watching French television programs, movies and, most especially, songs. When listening, jot down phrases and words that you’d like to learn so that you can practice them aloud. Podcasts such as Coffee Break French or InnerFrench are excellent for hearing natural accents at different levels. Try “shadowing”: repeat words immediately after hearing them, copying tone, rhythm, and speed.
5. Speak with a French native
Naturally, chatting with a French friend or French teacher is an ideal way to perfect your French accent. Make a specific point of asking them to correct your accent and watch the movement of their mouths as they speak. (May want to give them a little warning that you’re going to do this so they won’t be taken aback by your staring!)
6. Practice tongue twisters
You might be saying that French pronunciation is tricky enough without trying to speak a tangle of words that are even difficult for native French speakers! But tongue twisters (“virelangues“) are a fantastic way to test yourself and discover pronunciation patterns. And they’re fun too. Practice saying them slowly, and as you begin to get familiar with the sounds, increase your speed. Here are five of our favourite virelangues:
Dans ta tente ta tante t’attend.
(In your tent, your aunt is waiting for you)
Les chaussettes de l’archiduchesse, sont-elles sèches ? Archi-sèches!
(Are the socks of the archduchess dry? Extra dry!)
Ces cerises sont si sûres qu’on ne sait pas si c’en sont.
(The cherries are so sour that one doesn’t know if they are [cherries])
Pauvre petit pêcheur, prend patience pour pouvoir prendre plusieurs petits poissons.
(Poor little fisherman, be patient to catch several little fish)
Chouette chaussures!
(Cute shoes!)
If you’ve found this article helpful, please feel free to share it or let us know!
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7. Record, Compare, Repeat
Recording yourself regularly is one of the fastest ways to spot progress. Compare your recordings to native audio and note small improvements over time. This builds confidence and helps catch errors you might not notice in real-time speech.
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