Five different kinds of accent marks are used in written French. In many cases, an accent changes the sound of the letter to which it is added. In others, the accent has no effect on pronunciation. Accents in French never indicate stress (which always falls on the last syllable). The following table lists every French accent mark and the letters with which it can be combined:
letters
accent
examples
used
acute accent
é only
éléphant: elephant
(accent aigu)
grave accent
è, à, ù
fièvre: fever, là: there, où: where
(accent grave)
gâteau: cake, être: to be, île: island,
circumflex
â, ê, î,
chômage: unemployment,
(accent circonflexe) ô, û
dû: past participle of devoir
diaeresis
(tréma)
ë, ï, ü, ÿ[1] Noël: Christmas, maïs: corn, aigüe: acute(fem)[2]
cedilla
ç only
français: French
(cédille)
1. ? Note: The letter ÿ is only used in very rare words, mostly old town names like L'Haÿ-Les-Roses, a Paris surburb. This letter is pronounced like ï.
2. ? Note: As of the spelling reform of 1990, the diaresis indicating gu is not a digraph on words finishing in guë is now placed on the u in standard (AKA "académie française" French) : aigüe and not aiguë, cigüe and not ciguë, ambigüe and not ambiguë (acute(fem), conium, ambiguous). Since this reform is relatively recent and mostly unknown to laypeople, the two spellings can be used interchangeably.
Acute accent - Accent aigu
The acute accent (French, accent aigu) is the most common accent used in written French. It is only used with the letter e and is always pronounced /e/.
One use of the accent aigu is to form the past participle of regular -er verbs.
infinitive
past participle
aimer, to love
aimé, loved
regarder, to watch regardé, watched
Another thing to note is if you are unsure of how to translate certain words into English from French, and the word begins with é, replace that with the letter s and you will occasionally get the English word, or an approximation thereof:
étable --> stable (for horses)
école --> scole --> school
il étudie --> il studie --> he studies
And to combine what you already know about the accent aigu, here is one last example: étranglé (from étrangler) --> stranglé --> strangled
NB: This will not work with every word that begins with é.
Grave accent - Accent grave
à and ù
