French Letter L

Gardens at the Palace in Paris Surely there is not much to say about this humble little letter, but it’s not as boring as you think. The letter L in French can transform from your run of the mill “l” as in “ball” to the “y” as in “yonder” or “ey” as in “beyond”. This unassuming little letter can make a multitude of sounds, the trick is knowing why and when.

I began my French language education with Michel Thomas, listening to his recordings and taking on his lessons. The C-A-R-E-F-U-L consonants stood out as a way of learning the final consonants, the ones to pronounce and the ones that are silent. He taught a simple rule that French words with the final consonants C-F-L-R, which occur as the only consonants in the word “careful”, are voiced.

A handy, but very broad tool I discovered as I argued with my French tutor that the letter L within the word “gentil” was pronounced because it’s a final letter.

If only it was that simple.

How does a letter transform into three different sounds? The letter L in English only has the one sound, [l] as in “ball” and it’s this sound that is projected on every beginner’s pronunciation of a French word containing the letter L.

L as “yonder”

Grenouille and fenouil both use the letters IL or ILLE to make the [j] sound as it is pronounced in the English version of the word “yonder”.

L as in “beyond”

So, now you’re thinking that IL and ILLE, can make the [j] sound and in some parts of the French Language, they can but in other words, the letters IL and ILLE make the sounds [i] plus [j].

Listen to gentil and fille. The IL or ILLE sound here is longer, adding the [i] as in “knee” to the [j] as in “yonder”.

Location of the L matters

When the letters IL occur in the middle of a word and not just at the end, they can be voiced as separate sounds when another vowel follows the L. So île is pronounced with the “ee” sound as in knee, the “l” sound as in ball and the final letter “e” is silent (eell).

ILLE or sometimes ILLI as in cercueil (a verb) within a French word usually creates the [j] sound as in “yonder”

So when does L make an [l] sound?

Good question! There are a number of exceptions to the rules above, some are detailed in our Spell and Sound French Chart with Examples. An image for the letter L sound box is provided and contains many (but not all) of the exceptions where the letter L makes an [l] sound. Commonly used words like ville, village, mille, million, and île have the letter L that makes an [l] sound.