French · Pronunciation Guide

How do you pronounce "à" in French?

Q: How do you pronounce à in French?

à is pronounced with the stress described below. In IPA it is written /a/. It means “to / at.” ah — a single open vowel. The grave accent is purely a spelling device and changes nothing you can hear.

ah — a single open vowel. The grave accent is purely a spelling device and changes nothing you can hear.

à /a/

One unstressed vowel that leans forward onto the word it introduces. In "à Paris" the beat is entirely on the second syllable of Paris.

Listen: à

Free browser voice. Hear it read by a real native speaker inside the LingoDrop app.

Sound it out

a An open "ah" as in "father", clipped short. That is the entire word: one vowel, no consonant, nothing held.

` The grave accent is doing purely visual work. It exists to keep this preposition apart from "a" (has, from avoir) on the page, and it changes nothing at all about the sound.

Hear it in a sentence

On va à Paris demain.

We're going to Paris tomorrow.

Listen: On va à Paris demain.

Free browser voice. Hear it read by a real native speaker inside the LingoDrop app.

"On va à Paris demain" puts two "a" vowels side by side — "va à" — and French does not merge or elide them here, so you hear a slight double length: va-a-pa-REE. This word also contracts with articles: "à le" becomes "au" and "à les" becomes "aux", which is why you say "au cinéma" and never "à le cinéma".

Where English speakers slip

The written accent makes learners think something special must happen to the vowel, so they lengthen or colour it. It is a plain "ah". The real difficulty with this word is structural: English speakers say "à le restaurant" because they translate word by word, when the required contraction is "au restaurant". Learn "au" and "aux" as the forms this preposition takes in front of masculine and plural articles.