Les accents
This video is part of our free course beginners 1
How to pronounce
|
À = “ah”
as in "à" |
Ï = “ee”
as in "Maïs (ma-iss)" |
|
 = “ah”
as in "âge" |
Î = “ee”
as in "île" |
|
Ë = “uh”
as in "Noël (no-el)" |
Ô = “oh”
as in "côté" |
|
É = “ey”
as in "élevé" |
Ù = “ooh”
as in "où" |
|
È = “ey”
as in "après" |
Ü = “ooh”
as in "Müller" |
|
Ê = “ey”
as in "même" |
Û = “ooh”
as in "Août" |
Note
Accents only appear above vowels in French. Not every vowel can have every type of accent. French has 4 accents.
Accent circonflexe (circumflex accent) ô
Accent aigu (acute accent) é
Accent grave (grave accent) è
Tréma (diaeresis) ï
Note
The accents on the vowel “a” don’t change its pronunciation.
Note
The accents on the vowel “a” don’t change its pronunciation.
Note
The accents on the vowel “e” change its pronunciation from “uh” to “ey.”
Note
The accents on the vowel “u” don’t change its pronunciation.
Note
The circumflex accent on the vowel “i” doesn’t change its pronunciation.
Note
The accent on the vowel “o” doesn’t change its pronunciation.
Note
The diaeresis (¨) or “tréma” in French doesn’t change the sound of the vowels. It prevents us from combining letters to form new sounds. You can imagine that the word is cut in two just before the letter with the diaeresis.
Mais (but) "mey"
Maïs (corn) "ma-eess"
Noël (Christmas) "no-el"
