Watch your accents!

At the end of the lesson we touched briefly on how to type French accents.  There are two ways that I know of:

1) Use the Alt key + the accent code on your number pad. Make sure the number lock is on. Click on the link to find the list of codes.

2) Go to http://french.typeit.org/
Type your text and then cut and paste it into your document 

So, what are French accents and what is their purpose? Here is a brief explanation:

accent aigu  - é
Acute accent - always on letter e and alters the pronunciation. 
e.g. Il travaille (silent e at the end of travaille)
       Il a travaillé (the é at the end of travaillé is pronounced)

é at the beginning of a word means that, sometimes an s used to follow the vowel. You can see the s in some of the English equivalents.

e.g. étudiant = student
       étable = stable

accent grave  - à, è, ù
Grave accent - does not always change the pronunciation but sometimes changes the meaning of a word.

e.g. Il a trois enfants (a = has)                               He has three children
       Il va à la piscine (à = to)                                 He is going to the swimming pool
      
       Tu vas en voiture ou en train? (ou = or)           Are you going by car or train?
       Où est la voiture? ( où = where)                       Where is the car?

accent circonflexe - â, ê, î, ô, û

Circumflex accent - does not alter the pronunciation. It sometimes alters the meaning of a word and sometimes means that an s used to follow the vowel.

e.g. hâte = haste

       forêt = forest

       je voudrais du lait (du = some and is a contraction of de + le)        

       I would like some milk

      J'ai dû partir (dû is the past participle of devoir = must / to have to)         

      I had to leave 

cédille - Ç

Cedilla - like an upside down question mark always under the letter 'c'. It changes the sound from a hard k sound to soft s sound.  The cedilla is never placed in front of e or i, because c is always soft (sounds like an s) in front of these vowels.

e.g. Il travaille comme garçon de café        comme  =  hard c (k sound)
       He works as a waiter in a café              garçon   =  soft c (s sound)
                                                                  café      = hard c (k sound)
      ça va?
      How are you? / How are things?             ça   = soft c (s sound)

      Ceci n'est pas une pipe                         Ceci = soft c (s sound)
      This is not a pipe

tréma - ë, ï, ü
 umlaut (or diaeresis, but I have never heard anyone use this word). Two dots over an i or e to indicate that two vowels next to each other should be pronounced separately.

e.g. noël            (no - ell)  
      le canoë      (can-o-ay)
      naïf / naïve (nyeef / naive as in English)

N.B. Capital letters are usually left unaccented

Click on the link to learn more about French accents.