ACCENTS
ACUTE ACCENT
The acute accent (l'accent aigu) only appears above the letter
e- é. Without the acute accent, the letter e is normally
pronounced [ɛ] or [ə]. With the acute accent it is pronounced [e]
GRAVE ACCENT
Referring to accented
characters
é
è
ë
ì
î
ï
ò
ô
ù
à
â
ç
In most cases the grave accent (l'accent grave) has no effect on the pronunciation of a vowel. It
is placed over the letter e when the next syllable is mute.
mère
très
secrète
mother
very
secret
je mènerais
ils conquièrent
I would lead
they conquered
It is also placed over a and u in a small number of words:
à
au delà
voilà
où
to
beyond
where
In a few cases, the grave accent serves to distinguish two words which otherwise would have the
same spelling.
où
where
ou
or
CIRCUMFLEX
The circumflex, or the hat (î, â, ê) has absolutely no effect on pronunciation.
maître
pâte
bête
master
paste
beast
île
hôte
island
host
CEDILLE
The cedilla, la cédille, (ç) (is used only with the letter c to indicate the sound /s/ when it is
followed by the letter a, o, or u:
Ça va? /sa/
cahier /ka
The cedilla is not used with the letters e and i:
Ce
merci
C’est
ici
DIERESIS
The dieresis marks a vowel as being in a separate syllable from any neighboring vowel. For
example the letter combination ai is normally pronounced [e] or [ɛ] . However with the dieresis
over the i, it becomes [ai].
Maïs
corn
égoïste
selfish
Astéroïde
asteroid
Noël
Christmas
Hair
to hate
coincidence
coincidence
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