French Accents
There are 5 French accents:
- the cédille Ç,
- the accent aigu é,
- the accent circonflexe â, ê, î, ô, û,
- the accent grave à, è, ù
- and the accent tréma ë, ï, ü.
Listen to the audio of the French accents and practice your pronunciation with our voice recognition tool, as well as going through other French lessons.
An important thing to know about pronouncing French words is that the French accent marks can completely change the pronunciation of a word. Luckily, most accent marks don't actually do very much!
Resources for further reading:
The 5 French accents;
- 1 for a consonant
- 4 for vowels
1. The cédille (cedilla) Ç
The cédille is only used on the letter C. It changes a hard "c" sound (like "k") into a soft "c" sound (like "s"). Ç is never used before the vowels e or i, as these 2 vowels always produce a soft "s" sound (glace, ici).
Practice Your Pronunciation With Rocket Record
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Le caleçon
The underwear
Les garçons
The boys
Le jeu du garçon
The boy's game
Reçu
Receipt
Ça dure...
It lasts... / It takes...
2. The accent aigu (acute accent) é
The accent aigu is only used on the letter e.
Le canapé
The sofa
Le café
The coffee
Soufflé
Breathed
3. The accent circonflexe (circumflex) â, ê, î, ô, û
The accent circonflex indicates that (historically) an "s" used to follow that vowel e.g. écouter and escouter
Le vieux château
The old castle
Une fête
A party/gathering/feast
Le dîner
Evening meal
L'hôtel
The hotel
Bien sûr
Of course
4. The accent grave (grave accent) à, è, ù
With a and u, the accent grave is used to differentiate some words; - à "to" versus a "has"
- où "where" versus ou "or"
Où
Where
Voilà !
There you go!
5. The accent tréma (dieresis/umlaut) ë, ï, ü
The accent tréma indicates that the vowel is to be pronounced separately from the one immediately before it.
Noël
Christmas
L'aïeul
The ancestor
Notes!
- Sometimes the French accents are left off capital letters!
- If the correct French accent isn't used then it would be regarded as a spelling mistake!
More on é and è
Some French accents do change the pronunciation and need to be learned and practiced. The é and the è are the two most common. Look at the pronunciation guide below and listen and practice.
é
(pronunciation = ay)
été
Summer
è
(pronunciation = eh)
mère
Mother
That's probably enough pronunciation practice for now! Remember the more you listen, the more you'll be able to recognize words as they're spoken.
I would strongly recommend that you check out this lesson on the French alphabet next!
À bientôt !
Marie-Claire Rivière and the Rocket French Team
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