Cedilla: ç

La cédille

French cedillaThe little hook ¸ added under the letter c in French is a diacritical mark known as a cedilla, une cédille. The letter c with the hook ç is called c cédille.

The sole purpose of the cedilla is to change a hard c, pronounced [k], to a soft c, pronounced [s]. In French, the pronunciation of the letter c is determined by the letter that immediately follows it, as explained in the "hard vs soft" section of the vowels lesson. So when c is followed by a hard vowel but needs a soft pronunciation, add the cedilla and voilà ! the c is soft.

On the other hand, since c is already soft in front of e, i, and y, it cannot and must not take a cedilla there – even if a related word has one.

  Never. No exceptions.

Par exemple…

Soft vowels Hard vowels
  Besançon
bicyclette  
ceci, cela ça
cédille  
comme ci comme ça
commencer, commencé* commençant
commercial commerçant
concevoir conçu
décevant, décevoir déçu
douceâtre douçâtre
effacer, effacé* effaçable
  façon
fiancé fiançailles
France français
Francis, Francine François
glace glaçon
  hameçon
ici  
lancer, lancez* lançant, lançons
  leçon
  maçon
merci  
Provence provençal
  rançon
recevoir reçois, reçu
  soupçon

*These are spelling change verbs.

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French cedilla

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