Les Accents

One of the biggest differences between French and English is accents. French has them;English does not.

The next couple of pages will show you ALL the French accents and how to use them. Following that, there will be some exercises.

1) ACCENT AIGU ( é or É )

    This accent is only used with E and is pronounced "uhh accent AY GOO" for é or É. 

    It sounds like A in English.

    

   It is used for the past tense of -ER verbs. eg) J'ai marché,nous avons parlé.

   However, it also can be found in the middle of a word. eg) élèphant.

2) ACCENT GRAVE ( à,ù )

   This accent can be used with A,E, and U. It is generally found in the middle of a word except for 

   short words. eg)chéque, à, où

Note: où is the only word whoch has an accent grave on a U and it is there so you can tell the difference between "où" ,meaning WHERE and "ou" meaning OR. Since both words are pronounced the same way, this might be a problem sometimes.

3) ACCENT CIRCONFLEXE (â,ê,î,û)

Although you can find circonflexe accents on all French vowels, English ears may not always detect the change in pronounciation. 

eg)âcre, crêpe, fête, fraîche, hôtel, sûr

4) LA CÉDILLE ( Ç )

 The cédille turns a "hard" ç (Pronounced like K) into a "soft" ç ( pronounced like S)

 eg) Français, leçon, un reçu (=a receipt )

5) LE TRÉMA  (..)*..I can not express two dot on the letter with my computer ***

This accent, which looks like 2 dots over the vowel, is there for a special reason. It tells you that you have to pronounce each of the two vowels separately.

For example, "mais" means BUT yet "mais" means CORN. Notice how this is only onE syllable in "mais" yet there are two in "mais".

Another good example is Noel.

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élève, hôtel, équipe, été, Français, êpàule ( shoulder), écouter, professeur,noel, fenêtre..