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.

      

Il fait beau

Can it possibly be the beginning of March en Angleterre? 

This week, we took our coffee break in the garden, enjoying the warm, early spring sunshine - amazemont! (sic). 

As requested, today's post is about how to type French accents. There are, at least, 3 ways. There may be more, for all I know. 

1)  Use the alt key plus the code numbers on your number pad.  I usually use this method.  

2) Use French typeit and then cut and paste your document. I use this method if I am writing a long text.

3) When using 'word' you can click on Insert, Symbol to access French accents and characters for a wide range of languages.