{"id":33864,"date":"2021-07-02T03:11:33","date_gmt":"2021-07-02T01:11:33","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/blogs.transparent.com\/french\/?p=33864"},"modified":"2021-07-02T03:11:33","modified_gmt":"2021-07-02T01:11:33","slug":"les-accents","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/blogs.transparent.com\/french\/les-accents\/","title":{"rendered":"Les accents"},"content":{"rendered":"

Bonjour!<\/em><\/p>\n

Let’s talk about accents. In French they are important, since both the pronunciation and meaning of a word can change with or without an accent. For example:<\/p>\n

p\u00eacheur<\/em> vs p\u00e9cheur = <\/em>fisherman vs sinner<\/p>\n

Keep reading to help avoid mistakes like fisherman and sinner. \ud83d\ude42<\/p>\n

________________________________________________________<\/p>\n

Accent aigu<\/em><\/strong> (the acute accent, lit. the “high” accent): You will only see it on the letter: \u00e9<\/strong><\/p>\n

Ex. travaill\u00e9 <\/strong><\/em>(worked), mang\u00e9 <\/strong><\/em>(eaten)<\/p>\n

The\u00a0accent aigu\u00a0<\/em>is the most common accent used in French because it is used for the past tense form of many verbs. This makes the “e” sound higher–think of your voice following the accent up from the left to the right – \u00e9. When you see this accent, the sound is \u201cAY or EH\u201d – travaill-ay, mang-ay.<\/p>\n

__________________________<\/p>\n

Accent grave<\/strong><\/em>. (the grave accent, lit. the “low” accent) Occurs on the letters: \u00e0 <\/strong>\u00a0\u00e8 <\/strong>\u00a0\u00f9<\/strong><\/p>\n

Ex. u<\/em>ne pi\u00e8<\/strong>ce<\/em> (r<\/span>oom), u<\/em>ne l\u00e8<\/strong>vre<\/em> (<\/span>lip)<\/span><\/p>\n

With the letter “e,” the\u00a0accent grave\u00a0<\/em>is the opposite of the\u00a0accent aigu<\/em>. Picture your voice going lower by following the accent from left to right – \u00e8. It is used for the pronunciation of the letter “e,” but with the letters “a” and “u” the pronunciation does not change and it is only used to distinguish one word from another. For example, ou<\/em>\u00a0means “or” but\u00a0o\u00f9\u00a0<\/em>means “where.” These two words are pronounced exactly the same.<\/p>\n

__________________________<\/p>\n

Accent circonfl\u00eaxe<\/strong><\/em>. (the circumflex)\u00a0 Occurs on all vowels: \u00e2\u00a0 \u00ea\u00a0 \u00a0\u00ee\u00a0 \u00f4\u00a0 \u00fb<\/strong><\/p>\n

Ex. le ch\u00e2<\/strong>teau <\/em>(castle), l’h\u00f4<\/strong>pital<\/em> (hospital)<\/p>\n

The circumflex<\/em> normally indicates that there was once an \u201cs\u201d or an s sound in Latin or old French. Knowing this could help you understand the meaning in English at time as well.<\/p>\n

For example: h\u00f4<\/strong>pital – hospital<\/em><\/p>\n

f\u00ea<\/strong>te – feste<\/em> (feast)<\/p>\n

dego\u00fb<\/strong>tant – degoustant<\/em> (disgusting)<\/p>\n

fant\u00f4<\/strong>me<\/i> – phantasma (phantasm, ghost)<\/p>\n

This doesn\u2019t mean that you pronounce an s sound, however. The circumflex only affects the pronunciation of the letters \u201ca,\u201d \u201ce,\u201d and \u201co\u201d\u2013not \u201ci\u201d or \u201cu\u201d. This change in pronunciation is very slight however, as the circumflex is a combination of the accent grave and the accent aigu.<\/p>\n

The “petit chapeau” (little hat) can also represent another replaced letter. For example:<\/p>\n

\u00e2<\/em><\/strong>ge <\/em>– aage<\/em> (age)<\/p>\n

m\u00fb<\/strong>r – meur<\/em> (wall)<\/p>\n

s\u00fb<\/strong>r – seur <\/em>(sure)<\/p>\n

__________________________<\/p>\n

Le tr\u00e9ma <\/strong><\/em>(the umlaut) Occurs on the vowels: \u00eb\u00a0 \u00ef\u00a0 \u00fc<\/strong><\/p>\n

Ex. le ma\u00ef<\/strong>s (corn), No\u00eb<\/strong>l (Christmas)<\/p>\n

The\u00a0trema\u00a0<\/em>is used only when two vowels are next to each other and both need to be pronounced. Think of the two dots of the trema as both vowels next to one another. The popular name Zo\u00eb\u00a0<\/strong>is therefore pronounced Zoe-ee and not Zoe.<\/p>\n

__________________________<\/p>\n

La c\u00e9dille<\/strong><\/em> (the cedilla) Only happens on the letter \u00e7<\/strong><\/p>\n

Ex. fran\u00e7<\/strong>ais (French), \u00e7<\/strong>a (that)<\/p>\n

La c\u00e9dille\u00a0<\/em>is used to make a hard “c” sound softer. In fact, the \u00e7 sounds exactly like the English “s.” You will only see it in front of the letters ‘a’, ‘u’, or ‘o’. (A ‘c’ in front of an ‘e’ or ‘i’ already has an ‘s’ sound – so no need to add a c\u00e9dille.\u00a0<\/strong><\/em>For example – en face de<\/em> (in front of).<\/p>\n

__________________________<\/p>\n

\"\"

Photo from Pixabay, CCO.<\/p><\/div>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"\"\"

Bonjour! Let’s talk about accents. In French they are important, since both the pronunciation and meaning of a word can change with or without an accent. For example: p\u00eacheur vs p\u00e9cheur = fisherman vs sinner Keep reading to help avoid mistakes like fisherman and sinner. \ud83d\ude42 ________________________________________________________ Accent aigu (the acute accent, lit. the “high”…<\/p>\n

Continue Reading<\/a><\/p>","protected":false},"author":166,"featured_media":33872,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"content-type":""},"categories":[8],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-33864","post","type-post","status-publish","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-language"],"aioseo_notices":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.transparent.com\/french\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/33864","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.transparent.com\/french\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.transparent.com\/french\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.transparent.com\/french\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/166"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.transparent.com\/french\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=33864"}],"version-history":[{"count":8,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.transparent.com\/french\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/33864\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":33873,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.transparent.com\/french\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/33864\/revisions\/33873"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.transparent.com\/french\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/33872"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.transparent.com\/french\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=33864"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.transparent.com\/french\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=33864"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.transparent.com\/french\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=33864"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}