Accents

French accents
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Les accents

While French has the same alphabet as English, some French letters have little decorations that can make them look and sound very different. English loves to borrows words from French and other languages, but the accents are optional: you can write "naïve" or "naive," it makes no difference. In French, however, accents are essential: they’re there for a reason, so you must include them when writing.*

Accent Found on Where it’s used and what it means Par exemple…
´ aigu
acute
e Often at the beginning of words that started with "s" in Latin école
état
school
state
^ circonflexe
circumflex
a, e, i, o, u Often means "s" followed that letter in Latin
May distinguish between two words or change pronunciation
hôpital
sur vs sûr
hospital
on / sure
` grave
grave
a, e, u Often distinguishes between two words
May indicate pronunciation
la vs
très
the / there
very
¨ tréma
dieresis
e, i, u Consecutive vowels must be pronounced separately canoë
maïs
canoe
corn
¸ cédille
cedilla
c Only precedes a, o, u; changes hard c (k sound) into soft c (s sound) leçon
ça
lesson
that

When spelling out loud, there are two different ways to indicate accents: by naming them as you go or by mentioning them at the end.

Par exemple : très

  1. t – r – e accent grave – s
  2. t – r – e – s, avec accent grave sur le e

É is known as e accent aigu, but may also be called simply élearn more.

There’s also a special character created by two vowels that join together: œ ligature.

* The only exception is on capital letters, where accents are optional, but even that is debatable – and we’ll debate it in a future lesson.

 Yes, you can type accents! Check out these instructions for any computer / tablet / phone.

 Related features

Learn Spanish En español

Learn Italian In italiano

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French accents

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