Sonner AI's French accent test measures how closely your spoken French matches native-speaker pronunciation. Read a 60–100 word passage aloud, and the AI returns a 0–100 native-likeness score, detects your first-language accent, and identifies the specific phonemes and prosodic patterns holding your score back.
Record yourself reading the passage in your browser — no app download required. The audio is analyzed at the phoneme level using automatic speech recognition and forced alignment. You see your score within seconds.
85–100 is Native-like. 65–84 is Near-native. 40–64 is Noticeable accent. 20–39 is Strong. Below 20 is Heavy. Each band comes with a specific breakdown of what to fix next.
Choose between standard Parisian French (fr-FR) and Québécois French (fr-CA). The passage text, native audio model, and scoring norms all adjust to the selected variety.
The AI checks every sound you produce against the expected native-speaker realization. Common substitutions — English /ɹ/ for French /ʁ/, /u/ for /y/, or denasalized vowels instead of /ɑ̃/, /ɛ̃/, /ɔ̃/ — are flagged with word-level examples and an impact rating of high, medium, or low.
French obligatory liaisons — where a normally silent final consonant is pronounced before a vowel-initial word — are detected and scored. Missing a liaison in “les enfants” or “vous avez” is one of the most audible markers of a non-native accent.
French has syllable-timed rhythm and places primary stress at the end of phonological groups, not on individual word syllables. The AI notes when English stress-timing or word-level stress patterns are imposed on the French passage.
The pattern of phoneme substitutions is matched against known cross-linguistic interference profiles. The AI reports your most likely first language (English, Spanish, German, Mandarin, Arabic, and others) with a confidence percentage.
The uvular R (/ʁ/) — Produced at the back of the throat against the uvula. English, Spanish, and most other language speakers produce R at the front of the mouth. Substituting a non-uvular R is the most immediately audible marker of a foreign accent in French.
Front rounded vowels (/y/, /ø/, /œ/) — These vowels require rounded lips combined with a front tongue position that does not exist in English. The vowel in “tu” (/y/) is the most commonly mispronounced sound by English speakers.
Nasal vowels (/ɑ̃/, /ɛ̃/, /ɔ̃/, /œ̃/) — Air flows through both mouth and nose without a following nasal consonant. English speakers often add an audible N or M, turning /bɔ̃/ into “bone.”
Silent letters and e caduc — Most French word-final consonants are silent. The letter E at the end of words is mostly unpronounced. Pronouncing these letters is a strong accent marker. Conversely, incorrectly dropping the e caduc mid-word creates unnatural consonant clusters.
Liaison — The normally silent final consonant of a word is pronounced before a vowel-initial word in certain obligatory contexts. “Les amis” is “lay-za-mi”, not “lay a-mi”. Native French speech flows as a smooth stream; liaison is what makes it sound that way.
Your results report ranks accent features by impact. Start with the top one or two items — the features with the highest impact on your score. Use the word and sentence practice screen to drill those sounds specifically, with native TTS audio to compare against your recordings. Return to the accent test after two to four weeks to measure progress on a fresh passage.
If you are new to French pronunciation, start with the French pronunciation guide to understand the phonetic system before drilling individual sounds. For a deeper look at how the AI accent checker works, see the French accent checker overview.
No. You get three free accent tests without an account. Sign up to track your history and access more free tests, or upgrade to Pro for unlimited tests.
Any built-in laptop or phone microphone is sufficient. Record in a reasonably quiet environment for best results.
Duolingo evaluates single words with a pass/fail result using a general multilingual model. Sonner AI evaluates full passage reading, returns a quantitative 0–100 score, identifies your L1 accent, and provides phoneme-level breakdown with articulatory guidance. It is a dedicated French pronunciation tool.
Yes — select “Québécois” from the region dropdown before starting the test. The passage, native audio, and scoring norms all switch to Québécois French.
Retesting every two to four weeks gives you enough time to practice the flagged features before measuring again. Taking the test every day without drilling in between does not improve scores.