Some words have both an -e accent aigu (é), which I suggest to pronounce as -ay as in play and an accent grave. In addition to these examples listed above, the accent grave over the -è can be found in lots of other words. Let’s look at some examples of -è in common words: If you choose to disagree with me on this point that’s totally fine. Personally, I suggest to my private students to read the -è as “eh” or the -e sound in American English “get”. Some textbooks called the -è and “open” sound and liken it to the -a in bad. What do I do when I see accent grave over an -è?įirst we’ll take a look at how the accent grave is used over the letter -e and its effects on pronunciation. The accent grave has two primary usages: 1) to alter the pronunciation of the letter -e and 2) to differentiate homonyms (two words that are spelled the exact same way, are pronounced the exact same way but have different meanings). This is the downward sloping accent that appears over the following letters: -à, -è and -ù. Par example:įor regular -er verbs, the -er is removed and replaced with -é to form the past participle.

L’accent aigu can appear in or at the end of countless French nouns. The first one we’ll look at is the last letter of many French adjectives: If you’re reading this and disagree with me that’s fine. However, here at, I tell my private students that when they see an -é read it as -ay as in play. Many French teachers and writers of French textbooks will suggest that e accent aigu sounds like the -a in the English word bed. Of all the French accents this one is by far the most important as it’s used very widely throughout the language and has a big impact on how the -e is pronounced. L’accent aigu is an upward slanting accent and appears only over the letter -e and looks like this: é.

â, ê, î, ô, û l’accent circonflexe circumflex.

à, è, ì, ò, ù l’accent grave grave accent.

In a nutshell, here are the French accent marks: My friend, Camille, at also offers a very comprehensive guide to French accents including typing instructions. Here you can master the reading rules and alphabet and -r sounds. Getting French pronunciation down is tricky.

Become an expert in French pronunciation!

E with an accent mark word