LingoDrop
French · Pronunciation Guide
How do you pronounce "quel" in French?
kell — a bare "k", an open "eh", and a light "l". No "w" sound at all.
One syllable. All four written forms — quel, quelle, quels, quelles — are pronounced identically, so gender and number are invisible to the ear and visible only on the page.
Listen: quel
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Sound it out
Hear it in a sentence
Quel âge as-tu ?
How old are you?
Listen: Quel âge as-tu ?
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"Quel âge as-tu ?" contains a liaison across the hyphen and one before it: "quel âge" is /kɛ.l‿ɑʒ/, with the "l" bridging into the vowel, and "as-tu" runs together as one unit. French says "what age have you" where English says "how old are you" — the verb is "avoir", not "être", which is a common source of error.
Where English speakers slip
The English "quell" adds a "w" that French does not have. Beyond that, the trap is grammatical: "quel" must agree with the noun it modifies in writing, so "quelle heure" and "quel jour" look different even though they sound the same. And remember the age construction uses "avoir" — "je suis vingt ans" is a classic beginner mistake.