When you’re starting to learn French, you may be slightly confused by all the accented letters that exist in French. 

Before you move on to learning some basic French greetings or learning about French tenses, make sure you familiarise yourself with the French alphabet. This will allow you to practise saying everything you’re learning out loud, which is something I definitely recommend you do, even if you’re a complete beginner. 

So, here’s my ultimate guide to the French alphabet and specifically the French accent marks. Let’s get started! 

The 5 French accent marks in the French alphabet

The French alphabet has five different types of accent marks that you will find above vowels. Each of them has a name, so let’s start with that. I will then go into the detail of each one of the types of accent marks below.  

The acute accent (l’accent aigu) – é

That’s the stroke that goes upwards to the right. You will find it over the letter ‘e’. 

The grave accent (l’accent grave) – à, è, ù

That’s the stroke that goes down towards the right. You will find it over the letters: ‘a’, ‘e’ and ‘u’.

The circumflex (l’accent circonflexe) – â, ê, î, ô, û

That’s the little triangle-shaped accent mark that can be found over the letters: ‘a’, ‘e’, ‘i’, ‘o’ and ‘u’. 

The cedilla (la cédille) – ç

That’s the little ‘hook’ attached to the letter ‘c’. 

The trema (l’accent tréma) – ë, ï, ü

That’s the two dots you will find over the letters: ‘e’, ‘i’ and ‘u’.

So, what do you need to know now? 

Rather than explaining when to use the trema, for example, I’m going to group this article by letter, and then explain each configuration of that letter with the different accent marks that can accompany it. So, for example, we will look at the different types of accent marks that can go above the letter ‘e’, and then we’ll move on to other letters. This will hopefully make things easier for you to understand. 

Accent marks over ‘e’ in the French alphabet

The most common French letter that you will encounter and that is accompanied by an accent mark is the letter ‘e’. 

There are four different versions of it and we’re going to look at each one separately. The letter ‘e’ can be accompanied by the acute accent, the grave accent, the circumflex and the trema. 

The ‘e’ with the acute accent in French

This one will probably come up the most out of the four types of accent marks that can accompany the letter ‘e’ in French. 

You’re most likely to see it when reading and writing in the past tense in French because it can be found at the end of regular past tense verb forms (for example ‘J’ai joué’ – I played, ‘Je suis allé’ – I went, and so on). 

The acute accent in French changes the pronunciation of the ‘e’. 

English speakers often pronounce this sound like the ‘ay’ in the English words ‘say’, ‘hay’ or ‘bay’. However, that is not correct. 

The ‘ay’ sound in those English words is made up of two sounds – there’s kind of like an ‘ee’ sound at the end of it and your tongue and jaw move to make it. The French ‘e’ is one sound only and it doesn’t have the ‘ee’ at the end that English speakers often enunciate. 

The way I was taught how to say it was to say the sound ‘é’ like in the English word ‘get’ and while smiling. It’s like a smiley ‘e’. 

The ‘e’ with the grave accent in French

This one is probably a less common letter from the French alphabet than the one above but still, you’ll see it frequently when reading in French.

The ‘e’ with the grave accent is an indication that you must pronounce the ‘e’ – it’s not silent. For example, in the French word ‘frère’, the first ‘e’ has the grave accent, which means it must be pronounced. The final ‘e’ is silent. 

The pronunciation is like in the English word ‘get’. 

The ‘e’ with the circumflex in French 

The circumflex in French, just like the grave accent, tells you that the ‘e’ must be pronounced – it is not silent. The pronunciation of the circumflex is the same as with the grave accent – it can be compared to the ‘e’ sound in the English word ‘get’. 

The ‘e’ with the trema in French

The trema, just like the circumflex and the grave accent, tells you that the letter ‘e’ must be pronounced. The pronunciation is the same as with those two, sounding like the ‘e’ in the English word ‘get’. 

The purpose of the trema is to tell you that the ‘e’ should be pronounced as a standalone sound, rather than combining with another letter to form a different sound. For example, in the word ‘Noël’, meaning ‘Christmas, if the trema wasn’t there, the ‘e’ would combine with the ‘o’ and be pronounced [ɔ].

Accent marks over ‘a’ in the French alphabet

Accent marks over the letter ‘a’ in the French alphabet don’t change the pronunciation of this letter. It’s just pronounced like the ‘a’ sound in the English word ‘bat’ (pronounced in a British accent). 

Don’t ask me why they’re there! There is a linguistic reason for them but you don’t need to worry about that when you’re learning French.

The ‘a’ with the grave accent in French

The most likely role that you will see this letter from the French alphabet play is in the preposition ‘à’, which can mean ‘to’, ‘in’ or ‘at’. For example: 

Je vais à l’école (I go to school). 

Je suis à Paris (I’m in Paris). 

Nous sommes à la maison (We’re at home). 

It’s very important to remember to write the accent over the ‘a’ when you mean to use it as a preposition. Otherwise, it will look like the verb ‘a’, which is the third person singular of the verb ‘avoir’, which means ‘to have’: 

Elle a un chat (She has a cat). 

The ‘a’ with the circumflex in French

You will see this sometimes in words such as ‘pâté’. Like I said above, the pronunciation of the ‘a’ with the circumflex is the same as with the grave accent or without it.  

Accent marks with ‘c’ in the French alphabet

The only accent mark that can accompany the letter ‘c’ in French is the cedilla – the little hook underneath the ‘c’, in words such as ‘français’ (French) or ‘garçon’ (boy). 

The letter is pronounced like an ‘s’. The reason the cedilla is there is to tell you that the ‘c’ must be pronounced like an ‘s’, rather than like a ‘k’ sound (like in the English word ‘can’). Normally, when a ‘c’ is followed by a vowel, it should be pronounced like a ‘k’. If it’s not, it needs a cedilla. 

The French word ‘cuisine’ (kitchen), for example, doesn’t have a cedilla and the ‘c’ is pronounced like a ‘k’ sound because it’s followed by a vowel. In ‘garçon’, you need the cedilla because the ‘c’ is followed by a vowel but pronounced like an ‘s’.

Accent marks with ‘i’ in the French alphabet

The ‘i’ with the circumflex or the trema doesn’t change the pronunciation of the letter (as a standalone letter). It’s always pronounced like the ‘ee’ in ‘needle’. 

The ‘i’ with the circumflex in French 

The circumflex placed over the letter ‘i’ in French doesn’t change the pronunciation of the ‘i’. It just signals to you that the ‘i’ is pronounced like in the English word ‘needle’.

The ‘i’ with the trema in French 

The trema placed over the ‘i’ in French tells you that the ‘i’ should be pronounced as a standalone letter, rather than combining with another letter to produce a completely different sound. 

For example, in the French word ‘coïncidence’ (meaning ‘coincidence’). If the trema wasn’t there, the ‘i’ would form another sound with the ‘o’ that precedes it. It would sound like the French word ‘coin’ (corner). 

Accent marks with ‘o’ in the French alphabet

The letter ‘o’ can only be accompanied by one accent mark – the circumflex. Here are the rules:

The ‘o’ with the circumflex in French 

The ‘o’ with the circumflex sounds exactly like in ‘au’, as in ‘Je vais au cinéma’ (I’m going to the cinema). 

Accent marks with ‘u’ in the French alphabet

This one is quite straightforward too as the accent marks don’t change a lot. 

The ‘u’ with the grave accent in French 

The grave accent placed over the ‘u’ in French helps us distinguish between different words that have identical pronunciations. For example: 

‘ou’ means ‘or’ and ‘où’ means ‘where’ 

The ‘u’ with the circumflex in French 

The circumflex over the ‘u’ in French is also a handy way of distinguishing between words that are pronounced in the same way. The accent mark doesn’t change the pronunciation of the ‘u’. Let’s look at some examples: 

‘sur’ means ‘on’ and ‘sûr’ means ‘certain’

‘du’ is the combination of ‘de + le’ (as in ‘faire du sport’– to play sports) and ‘dû’ means ‘due’ 

The pronunciation is exactly the same. 

The ‘u’ with the trema in French 

The trema can be used over the ‘u’ to signal that the preceding vowel should be pronounced separately. 

It is extremely rare to see this combination of the ‘u’ and the trema accent mark and I haven’t actually been able to find any examples. If you know of any, do let me know in the comments below! 

Other letters in the French alphabet 

Other than the letters I included above, the French alphabet has pretty much the same letters as the English alphabet. There are, of course, differences in how they’re pronounced but that’s a topic for another article. 

For now, I hope you found this guide to the French alphabet and the different French accent marks useful!