Le téléphone est sur le bureau.

Because French usually uses an article where English sometimes uses the or sometimes leaves it implied.

• le téléphone = the phone
• le bureau = the desk

Both téléphone and bureau are masculine singular nouns, so they take le.

French articles must agree with the noun:

• le = masculine singular
• la = feminine singular
• les = plural

You generally have to learn the gender along with the noun.

So it is best to memorize them as:

• le téléphone
• le bureau

There is not always a perfect rule for guessing gender, although some endings can help. In this sentence, both nouns happen to be masculine, which is why they use le.

est is the he/she/it form of the verb être, which means to be.

The subject is Le téléphone, which is singular, so French uses the singular form:

• je suis = I am
• tu es = you are
• il/elle/on est = he/she/it is

So:

• Le téléphone est... = The phone is...

Yes, but the final -t is normally silent.

So est sounds roughly like eh.

In the sentence Le téléphone est sur le bureau, French speakers often connect the words smoothly, so you may hear a light linking between téléphone and est in natural speech, but the main point is that the final t of est is not pronounced by itself.

Because French usually follows the same basic word order as English in simple statements:

subject + verb + prepositional phrase

Here:

• Le téléphone = subject
• est = verb
• sur le bureau = location phrase

So the structure is very straightforward:

• The phone
  • is
    • on the desk

sur usually means on or on top of.

In this sentence, it shows location:

• sur le bureau = on the desk

Use sur when something is physically resting on a surface.

Examples:

• Le livre est sur la table. = The book is on the table.
• Les clés sont sur le lit. = The keys are on the bed.

This is a very common question.

• sur means on, with contact
• au-dessus de means above / over, usually without contact

So:

• Le téléphone est sur le bureau. = The phone is on the desk.
  The phone is touching the desk.
• La lampe est au-dessus du bureau. = The lamp is above the desk.
  It is higher than the desk, not necessarily touching it.

It can mean either desk or office, depending on context.

In this sentence, sur le bureau clearly means on the desk, because something can be physically on a desk.

Examples:

• Je travaille dans un bureau. = I work in an office.
• Le livre est sur le bureau. = The book is on the desk.

So context tells you which meaning is intended.

The accents help show pronunciation.

In téléphone, the é tells you that the vowel is pronounced like ay in a simplified approximation:

• té = a clear ay sound
• lé = another ay sound

Without accents, the pronunciation rules would be different or less clear.

Accents in French are important because they can affect pronunciation and sometimes distinguish words.

A rough English-friendly pronunciation is:

tay-lay-fon

A bit more carefully:

• té sounds like tay
• lé sounds like lay
• phone sounds more like fon than the English word phone

The stress in French is not as strong and jumping as in English, so try to say it smoothly rather than heavily stressing one syllable.

Because in French, nouns usually need an article or another determiner.

So bureau normally cannot stand alone here. French needs:

• sur le bureau = on the desk

Leaving out the article would sound incomplete in standard French.

This is a common difference from English, where article use can sometimes feel lighter or more flexible.

Yes. That is also correct.

• Le téléphone est sur le bureau. = The phone is on the desk.
• Le téléphone se trouve sur le bureau. = The phone is located on the desk.

The version with est is simpler and more common for beginners.
The version with se trouve sounds a little more descriptive or formal, depending on context.

If both nouns became plural, you would change the article and the verb as needed.

For example:

• Les téléphones sont sur les bureaux.

Changes:

• le → les
• est → sont
• téléphone → téléphones
• bureau → bureaux

So:

• Le téléphone est sur le bureau. = singular
• Les téléphones sont sur les bureaux. = plural