Accent aigu
In French, E is the only letter that can be modified with l’accent aigu, the acute accent. With the accent, it may be called either e accent aigu or simply é, pronounced [e] (more or less like "ay"). As indicated by the latter, the acute accent changes the vowel’s pronunciation to [e].
Par exemple…
é sound | ||
un été | summer | |
une école | school | |
un défi | challenge | |
raffiné | refined |
Note that there are several other spellings which create the same pronunciation – see lesson on E.
Spelling notes
At the beginning of a word, é is usually a sort of linguistic marker, indicating that the Old French or Latin word started with es or s. (Incidentally, the English equivalent often starts with s or es as well.)
Par exemple…
été | originally spelled esté | summer | ||
établir | from Latin stabilire | establish |
É is an open vowel, which means it can only be found in open syllables. It never precedes the letter x or any doubled consonant, and it’s never found in the final syllable of a word followed by any consonant other than s. (With the exception of apocopes like dém, short for démission.)
Accent on grammar
1) The past participle of all -er verbs ends in é.
Par exemple…
manger | j’ai mangé | |
aller | je suis allé |
2) É features in the é_er to è_er type of stem-changing verb: it changes to è (e accent grave) in the affected conjugations.
Par exemple…
gérer | je gère | |
répéter | je répète |
3) Traditionally, é was added to the end of regular -er verbs in inversion with je:
parler | parlé-je | |
marcher | marché-je |
Related lessons
- Letter: E
- Vowels
- Accents
- Consonants
- Open vs closed
- Past participles
- Stem-changing verbs
- How to type French accents
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