In the case of the letters à and ù, the grave accent (Fr. accent grave), is used to graphically distinguish one word from another.
without accent grave
with accent grave
a (3rd pers. sing of avoir, to have)
à (preposition, to, at, etc.)
la (definite article for feminine nouns) là ( there)
ou (conjunction, or)
où ( where)
è
Unlike à and ù, è is not used to distinguish words from one another. The è is used for pronunciation. In careful speech, an unaccented e is pronounced like the article a in english (a schwa), and in rapid speech is sometimes not pronounced at all. The è is pronounced like the letter e in pet.
Cedilla - Cédille
The cedilla is used only with the letter "c", and is said to make the "c" soft, making it equivalent to the English and French S.
le garçon --> ( boy)
French Accents on computers
While French keyboards are available, some French students may need to enter accented characters on an English keyboard. There are two methods of doing so - some modern word processing software allow entering accents using a key combination, while other applications may require using an Alt code.
In supporing word processing software, you can initiate an accent by entering an appropriate key combination.
accent
key combination
acute accent
CTRL-'
(accent aigu)
grave accent
CTRL-`
(accent grave)
circumflex
CTRL-SHIFT-6
(accent circonflexe)
diaeresis
CTRL-;
(tréma)
cedilla
CTRL-,
(cédille)
On applications that do not support the key combinations, the alternate method available to students is to hold down the ALT key, and enter the code number on the keypad. In some applications, you may also need to have the numlock turned on to avoid undesirable effects.
Character code Character
code
à
133 À
0192
â
131 Â
0194
ä
132 Ä
142
æ {ae}
145 Æ {ae}
146
? {oe}
0156 ? {oe}
0140
ç
135 Ç
128
é
130 É
144
ê
136 Ê
0202
è
138 È
0200
ë
137 Ë
0203
î
140 Î
0206
ï
139 Ï
0207
ô
147 Ô
0212
ù
151 Ù
0217
û
150 Û
0219
ü
129 Ü
154 or 0220
«
174 »
175
