An Introduction to French Pronunciation

34 The Consonant Phonemes
equivalent written as j, as in je, jouer, etc., or, not infrequently,
before e, i or y, as g, as in geler, gilet, gymnaste, IPA symbol
/ʒ/.
6.8 Lateral
The symbol for the one (voiced) lateral consonant of French,
the l of lit, malade, pâle, etc., is /l/.
6.9 Nasals
6.9.1 French has four nasal consonant phonemes, all of
them usually voiced though, as we shall see (16.6), a voiceless
allophone of /m/ occurs.
6.9.2 The bilabial nasal of ma, aimer, plume: IPA /m/.
6.9.3 The dental nasal of nous, venir, lune: IPA /n/.
6.9.4 The palatal nasal, always written gn, as in signer, vigne:
IPA //. There is no corresponding phoneme in English – see
16.3.3.
6.9.5 A velar nasal that, as a phoneme, is always written ng
and occurs in words ending in -ing borrowed from English,
e.g. parking, meeting, and in the word for the former Austrian
unit of currency, schilling: IPA /ŋ/. (In addition, it can occur
as an allophone of /g/ in some contexts – see 18.3.4.)
6.10 r-Sounds
There are at least three clearly distinguishable ways (more if
one counts minor variations) of pronouncing the French r of
words such as rouge, Paris, cher (see 16.1). Each has its own