The French accents
How to use accents in French
The types of accents
The French language uses accents to differentiate the pronunciation of the vowels A, E, I, O, U and certain the letters C.
The accents are called
- "grave" as in à (A grave)
- "aigue" as in é (E aigue)
- "circonflex" as in ô (O circonflex)
- "cedile" as in ç (C cedile)
The letters and their accents
A : a, à, â
E : e, é, è, ê
I : i, î
O : o, ô
U: u, ù, û
C : c , ç
OE : œ
You will occasionally encounter the tréma and tilde. The strict grammar rules still require that capital letters should also show their accents when necessary.
Let's have a look at some examples.
In English the words 'inside' and 'ice' begin with the letter 'I', which is pronounced differently but writtern in the same way.
However in French the words 'exemple' and 'écrire' both begin with the letter 'e',
but 'écrire' has an acute accent on the first 'e', which means that it must be pronounced
differently.
How to pronounce the accents
A as in apple
E as in
Audio
Audio files so that you can listen to the accents being soken by a French actor.