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Orthography
Objective: Identify the four French accent marks and apply them correctly to vowels and the letter c.
| Mark | Name | Role | Example |
|---|---|---|---|
| é | accent aigu | Closed ay sound on e | café |
| è | accent grave | Open eh sound on e; distinguishes à, où, là | père |
| ê | accent circonflexe | Open eh sound on e; marks a lost letter | forêt |
| ç | cédille | Keeps the s sound before a, o, u | français |
The first e in école requires the accent aigu, and omitting it changes the pronunciation and the spelling.
The c before an a needs the cedilla to stay s-sounding, so français cannot be written without ç.
The first e in école takes the accent aigu. Without it, the word would not be recognisable as French.
Père takes the accent grave, which produces the open eh sound. Médecin takes the accent aigu on the first e, and its second e is unaccented.
The ç in français keeps the s sound before the letter a, which would otherwise make the c sound like k.
The é at the end of café takes the accent aigu. The final accent marks the closed ay sound.
The preposition à takes the accent grave to distinguish it from the verb a. Both words sound the same in speech.
5 exercises · about 8 minutes
The preposition à takes the accent grave to distinguish it from the verb a, which means has.
Très takes the accent grave, producing the open eh sound in the vowel.
The circumflex on forêt marks the s that once appeared in the word. The vowel sounds the same as è.
The cedilla under the c in garçon keeps the s sound before the letter o, which would otherwise produce k.