In which I will teach you how to be able to read, write and speak French, because French is the language of love.
Painting on the cover: View of the Church in Vernon by Claude Monet
First off, I found a cute video on the alphabet (the writing in French remains the same as in English)
Listen to it more than once. The alphabet is similar to the English one, it has the same letters, but they are just not pronounced the same way.
SO basically you have : a-b-c-d-e-f-g-h-i-k-l-m-n-o-p-q-r-s-t-u-v-w-x-y-z
But there are also signs that you had on a certain letter that creates a different sound (like the ñ in Espagnol). These signs are mostly added in vowel : a-e-i-o-u (but not on the y)
A
À: there is à that is called «a accent grave» which translated it means a hard accent. À is often used in sentences as a homophone. For example, à boire, à vous dirais-je, à tomber en amour. A use of the à very famous is for the word ça which mean this/that.
Â: is called «a accent circonflexe» (circumflex accent)it is mostly used in conjugated verbs like nous chantâmes, vous chantâtes, qu'il chantâ. An accent circonflexe adds a more accentuated sounds to a vowel. Like château is pronounced differently from chateau.
E
É: is called «e accent aigu» which mean acute accent, so when you pronounce é it is more sharp than a regular e. It is used in a lot of nouns, verbs like café (coffee), été (summer), liberté (liberty). It is also used in with infinitive verbs like il a mangé (he ate), nous avons voyagé (we traveled).
È: called «e accent grave» (grave accent)(see the same ending as à) mostly used in verbs and in some words like congrès (congress), père (father), mère (mother), accès (access), près (near/close).
Ë: called «e tréma», (umlaut accent, I seriously don't understand google translate)rarely used I've only seen ë in names like Samuël and Raphaël. Also the most famous word with an ë is the word noël (christmas).
Ê: called «e accent circomflexe» (circumflex accent) mostly used in words like fête (birthday), bête (beast).
I
Ï: called «i tréma» very rare also, only see them in names.
Î: called «i accent circomflexe» (circumflex accent) mostly used in words like gîte (covert), traîner (verb to drag).
O
Ô: called « o accent circonflexe»(circumflex accent) it is mostly linked with normal words like nôtre(ours), vôtre (yours).
U
Ü: Rarely used means «u tréma»
Û: «u accent circomflexe» (circumflex accent) mostly used in words like dû (of), sûr (on like on a table).
Ù: «u accent grave» (grave accent) mostly used with the word où which means where, for example: où vas-tu? (where are you going?).
There is also a consonant that has a special sign «ç» called «c cédille». Usually «C» is pronounced as a hard consonant (coffee/café) but when you add a cédille (ç) the c sounds becomes soft, as if the c became «ss». For example the word leçon (lesson) is pronounced lesson (in a French accent of course) if there wasn't any ç it would be pronounced lekon. Ç works with the vowels : ça, ço, çu (the last two are not common).
Theses informations doesn't teach you how to pronounce these signs but at least now you will know that these signs are used in the French language.
Until next time...
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