g and c — one rule, two letters

In one line

Before e i y they go soft, before anything else they go hard. The letter in front plays no part.

The table

And one word can contain both:

garage /ɡa.ʁaʒ/ — the first is before a so it is hard, the second is before e so it is soft

English follows exactly the same rule and you already use it. Cat / city, got / gem, garage / general — hard before a o u, soft before e i y. So there is nothing structural to learn here. Only the output differs:

	English soft	French soft
c	/s/ — city	/s/ — the same
g	/dʒ/ — gem	/ʒ/ — no "d" at the start

French soft g is the sound in the middle of "measure" or "vision", not the sound at the start of "gem". That one adjustment covers âge, général, manger, rouge and Jean.

When you want the sound but the next letter will not let you

Two tools, one for each direction:

English patches the same problem, just less tidily. It writes guess and guitar with a silent u for exactly the French reason, and it doubles up in noticeable and manageable — keeping an e that serves no purpose except to hold the consonant soft. That silent e in "manageable" is the same device as the one in nous mangeons. The only tool English lacks is the cedilla.

And this is what shows up in verb conjugation:

Exceptions

Examples

Common mistakes

And why the rule exists at all