French writes with the same 26 letters as English. What it adds are five accents, small marks written on a letter: é, è, ê, ë and ç. An accent either changes how the letter sounds or tells apart two words that would otherwise be spelled the same. Accents are part of the spelling, so a word without its accent is misspelled.
Accents never make a new letter. In a dictionary, é is filed under e and ç under c.
Short answer: 26 letters, said with French names (a is “ah”, e is “uh”, i is “ee”). é always sounds “ay”, è and ê sound “eh”, ë splits two vowels, ç sounds “s”. Accents on à, ù and on some words with ê or û only tell words apart.
The 26 letters, with French names
Every letter has a name, used when you spell a word aloud, and a sound, used when you read. Pronunciations are written in English-style syllables. French gives every syllable about equal weight, with a little extra on the last one. Letters with a blue edge behave differently from English. Press a row to hear the example.
Two letters behave very differently depending on what comes after them. C and g are hard (“k”, “g”) before a, o and u, and soft (“s”, “zh”) before e, i and y: café but cinéma, gare but girafe. The full sound system, including the nasal vowels and the French r, is in French pronunciation.
The five accents and what they do
Each accent has a French name you will hear in class and when people spell words aloud. The table shows which letters each accent can sit on, what it does to the sound, and a word to practise.
Mark
French name
Found on
What it does
Example
é
accent aiguahk-SAHN tay-GÜ · acute accent
e only
Always the closed “ay” sound, shorter than English “say”, with no glide.
cafékah-FAY · coffee, café
è
accent graveahk-SAHN GRAHV · grave accent
e, a, u
On e: the open “eh” of bed. On a and u it changes only the meaning (à, où).
On e: “eh”. On the other vowels the sound changes little or not at all. Often marks a lost s.
fêtefet · party, feast
ë
trématray-MAH · diaeresis
e, i, u
Says “pronounce me separately”: the vowel does not merge with the one before it.
Noëlnoh-ELL · Christmas
ç
cédillesay-DEE · cedilla
c only
Turns c into a soft “s” before a, o, u.
garçongar-SOHN · boy, waiter
The circumflex is a fossil. Old French wrote forest and hospital; the s stopped being pronounced and was replaced by a roof over the vowel. English borrowed these words before the s was lost, so it still has them.
When é is usedWhen the “ay” sound ends a syllable: é-té, ca-fé, ré-pon-dre. Past participles of -er verbs all end in é: parlé (spoken), mangé (eaten).
When è is usedWhen the “eh” sound comes before a syllable ending in silent e: mè-re, pè-re (father), il ach-è-te (he buys).
When ç is usedOnly before a, o and u, where c alone would be “k”. Before e and i, c is already soft, so ç never appears there: français but France.
Accents that only change meaning
Some accents change nothing in the sound. They exist so that a reader can tell two short words apart at a glance. Each pair below sounds identical; only the spelling differs.
ahasàto, atboth said “ah”
ouoroùwhereboth said “oo”
lathe (feminine)làthereboth said “lah”
dusome, of thedûowed, had toboth said “dü”
suronsûrsureboth said “sür”
You can see two of these pairs working in one sentence. Every word has its English meaning underneath.
eel ah uh(n)-nah-MEE ah pah-REE. oo ah-beet-TEEL“He has a friend in Paris. Where does he live?”
Why:A without an accent is the verb “has”; à with a grave accent is the preposition “to, at, in”. Où with an accent is “where”; ou without it would mean “or”. The -t- in habite-t-il is added just to separate two vowel sounds.
Two joined letters: œ and æ
A ligature is two letters written as one shape. French has two. Œ (o and e joined) is common and is said like the “u” in British “fur”, as in sœur (sister) and cœur (heart). It also appears in œuf (egg). Æ is rare and appears in a few Latin words such as et cætera. If your keyboard has no œ, writing oe is accepted.
Spelling your name aloud
When French speakers spell, they name the accent after the letter: “e accent aigu” for é, “c cédille” for ç. A double letter is “deux” (two) plus the letter: “deux l”. Here is the exchange you will have at a hotel desk or on the phone. Every word is glossed, given its English meaning underneath, so you can see how the sentence is built.
ahsh, uh ahk-SAH(N) tay-GÜ, ell, uh ahk-SAH(N) GRAHV, enn, uh“H, E acute, L, E grave, N, E.”
Why:Give the accent straight after its letter. People write as you speak, so a missing accent becomes a spelling mistake on your booking.
Clerk
Merci,thanksc’estit-isnoté.noted
mair-SEE, seh noh-TAY“Thank you, that’s noted.”
Why:Noté ends in é: the past participle of noter, to note down. Every -er verb forms it this way.
For email addresses, @ is arobase (ah-roh-BAHZ), a dot is point (pwa(n)) and a hyphen is tiret (tee-REH). Why so many final letters in these words go unsaid is explained in silent letters and liaison.