Accents

 Introduction:

There are five different kinds of accent marks used in written French. They are:

accent letters

used examples

acute accent

(accent aigu) é only éléphant: elephant

 grave accent

(accent grave) è, à, ù fièvre: fever, là, there

où: where

 

circumflex

(accent circonflexe)

â, ê, î,

ô, û

gâteau: cake, être: to be, île: island,

chômage: unemployment,

dû: past participle of devoir

 

diaeresis

(tréma) ë, ï, ü, ÿ** Noël: Christmas, maïs: corn, aigüe:

acute(fem)*

 

cedilla

(cédille) ç only français: French

 

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 /ay/.

 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:

  Ex.:

• 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

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, et al.)

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 used for pronunciation. In careful speech, an unaccented e is pronounced /euh/, and in rapid speech is sometimes not pronouncedat all. The è is pronounced like the letter e in pet.

Speech: Tonic Accent - L’accent tonique

In English, you stress certain syllables more than others. However in French, you pronounce each syllable evenly.

 

Greetings

French Dialogue • Greetings

 Greetings • Les salutations

 

Jacques et Marie

 Jacques: Bonsoir, Marie.

Marie:  Euh ? Tu t'appelles comment ?

Jacques:  Moi je m'appelle Jacques.

Marie:  Ah, oui. Quoi de neuf, Jacques ?

Jacques:  Pas grand-chose. Alors[2], au revoir, à demain, Marie.

Marie:  À la prochaine, Jacques.

 

Olivier et Luc

 Olivier: Salut.

Luc: Bonjour.

Olivier Tu t'appelles comment ?

Luc: Luc. Et toi ?

Olivier: Je suis Olivier.

Luc: Ah, oui. Alors, à bientôt, Olivier.

Olivier: Salut, Luc !

 

French Vocabulary • Greetings Greetings • Les salutations

Salut Hi./Bye. (informal)

Bonjour Hello (more formal than salut) (all day)

Bonsoir Good evening

Bonne nuit  Good night bun nwee

Quoi de neuf ? What's up (about you)? (lit. what's new)

Pas grand-chose. Not much. (lit. no big-thing)

 

Formal Lesson - Greetings

When talking to one's peers or to children, Salut! is used as a greeting. It's English equivalents wouldbe hi and hey. Bonjour, literally meaning good day, should be used for anyone else. Bonsoir. is used tosay Good evening. Bonne nuit. is used to say Good night. before going to bed.

 Good-bye

French Vocabulary • Greetings Good-bye • Au revoir

Salut.  Hi./Bye.  (informal)

Au revoir. Good-bye.  ohrvwahr (ev not pronounced)

À demain. See you tomorrow. ah duhman (Lit: To/Until Tomorrow)

Au revoir, à demain.  Bye, see you  tomorrow.

À tout à l'heure. See you (later today)! ah tootah luhr

À la prochaine. See you (tomorrow)! ah lah proh shayn

À bientôt. See you soon. ah byantoe

Ciao Bye. chow (Italian)

 Formal Lesson - Good-byes

 In addition to being used as an informal greeting, Salut. also means bye. Again, it should only be usedamong friends. Another informal greeting is ciao, an Italian word commonly used in France. Au revoir is the only formal way to say Good-bye. If you will be meeting someone again soon, À bientôt. or À tout à l'heure. is used. À demain. is used if you will be seeing the person the following day.

 

Names

Tu t'appelles comment ? is used to informally ask someone for his or her name. You respond to this with Je m'appelle [name]. In the next lesson, you will learn more formal ways of asking someone for their name.

Check for understanding

One of your good friends is introducing you to his younger cousin who is visiting on a trip from France, and doesn't speak a word of English. You want to introduce yourself to him, tell him your name, and ask

 

Formal speech

A Formal Conversation

French Dialogue • Formal

A Formal Conversation • Une conversation formelle

 Two people—Monsieur Bernard and Monsieur Lambert—are meeting for the first time:

 

Monsieur Bernard: Bonjour. Comment vous appelez-vous ?

Monsieur Lambert: Je m'appelle Jean-Paul Lambert. Et vous ?

Monsieur Bernard: Moi, je[1] suis Marc Bernard. Enchanté.

Monsieur Lambert: Enchanté[2].

 

1. I (I is not capitalized in French (unless, of course, beginning a sentence))

2. Nice to meet you (lit. enchanted)

 

Vous vs. tu

This is an important difference between French and English. English doesn't have a singular and plural,formal version of "you" (although "thou" used to be the informal (arguably archaic) singular version in the days of Shakespeare).

 

In French, it is important to know when to use "vous" and when to use "tu".

"Vous" is a plural form of "you". This is somewhat equivalent to "y'all", "youse", "you guys", "all of you", except that it is much more formal than all but the last  example.

 

"Vous" is also used to refer to single individuals to show respect, to be polite or to be neutral. It is used in occasions when talking to someone who is important, someone who is older than you are, orsomeone you are unfamiliar with. Note the conversation between M.Bernard and M. Lambert above as an example of this use.

 

Conversely, "tu" is the singular and informal form of "vous" (you) in French. It is commonly used when referring to a friend and a family member, and also used between children or when addressing a child. If it is used when speaking to a stranger, it signals disrespect.

 As a rule of thumb, use "tu" only when you would call that person by his first name, otherwise use "vous". French people will make it known when they would like you to refer to them by "tu".

 

Final consonants and the liaison

In French, certain consonants are silent when they are the final letter of a word. The letters p (as in'coup'), s (as in 'héros'), t (as in 'chat'), d (as in 'marchand), and x (as in 'paresseux'), are never pronounced at the end of a word.

b and p

Unlike English, when you pronounce the letters 'b' and 'p' in French, little to no air should be expended from your mouth. In terms of phonetics, the difference in the French 'b' and 'p' and their English counterparts is one of aspiration (this is not related to the similarly named concept of 'h' aspiré below,but is a slight extra puff of air accompanies the stop). Fortunately, in English both aspirated and unaspirated variants (allophones) actually exist, but only in specific environments. If you're a native speaker, say the word 'pit' and then the word 'spit' out loud. Did you notice the extra puff of air in the first word that doesn't come with the second? The 'p' in 'pit' is aspirated [pʰ]; the 'p' in 'spit' is not (like the 'p' in any position in French).

Exercise for you

1. Get a loose piece of printer paper or notebook paper.

2. Hold the piece of paper about one inch (or a couple of centimeters) in front of your face.

3. Say the words baby, and puppy like you normally would in English. Notice how the paper

moved when you said the 'b' and the 'p' respectively.

4. Now, without making the piece of paper move, say the words belle (the feminine form of

beautiful in French, pronounced like the English 'bell.'), and papa, (the French equivalent of

"Dad").

• If the paper moved, your pronunciation is slightly off. Concentrate, and try it again.

• If the paper didn't move, congratulations! You pronounced the words correctly!

Aspirated vs. non-aspirated h In French, the letter h can be aspirated, (h aspiré), or not aspirated, (h non aspiré), depending on which language the word was borrowed from. What do these terms mean?

• Ex.: the word héros, (hero) has an aspirated h, because when the definite article le is placed

before it, the result is le héros, and both words must be pronounced separately. However, the

feminine form of héros, héroïne is a non-aspirated h. Therefore, when you put the definite

artcle in front of it, it becomes l'héroïne, and is pronounced as one word.

The only way to tell if the h at the beginning of a word is aspirated is to look it up in the dictionary. Some dictionaries will place an asterisk (*) in front of the entry word in the French-English H section if the h is aspirated. Other dictionaries will include it in the pronunciation guide after the key word by placing a (') before the pronunciation. In short, the words must be memorized.

Here is a table of some basic h words that are aspirated and not aspirated:

aspirated                               non-aspirated

héros, hero (le héros)         héroïne, heroine (l'héroïne)

haïr, to hate (je hais            habiter, to live (j'habite...)

orj'haïs...) 

huit, eight (le huit               harmonie, harmony (l'harmonie)

novembre) 

Exercise for you

1. Grab an English-French-English dictionary, and find at least ten aspirated h words, and ten non aspirated h words

2. Make a column of the two categories of h-word.

3. Look at it every day and memorize the columns.