# use of grave accent



## roland098

I've moved this from the é and è thread.

Obviously there's a very clear sound to the é, which is basic to learning to pronounce French. 

On the other hand I'm not sure if the è is always very different to how you would say the word if it was just e. What do people think? I mean I know the sound of an è, but how vital a function do you think that accent plays?

Sometimes, mostly other letter I think (?) it serves to differenciate words, not to change the sound, as in à and a, ou and où.


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## RuK

In school, in first grade, French kids are taught that there's a difference -- ehr for è, eh for e. In practise, however, I hear no distinction. It's probably my own denseness.


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## clairet

Doesn't the second syllable in these two words sound quite different?

espérer
espère

I think it does but perhaps the reason is not the accents?


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## roland098

Yes, it does, but what I mean is, would the second sound all that different if it had no grave accent?

PS Thanks for your point Ruk. I wonder, does the grave accent really create a longer, more ehhr sound, or not. What does anyone else think?

As far as I know there are only two distinct E sounds in French..?


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## mplsray

RuK said:


> In school, in first grade, French kids are taught that there's a difference -- ehr for è, eh for e. In practise, however, I hear no distinction. It's probably my own denseness.


 

Representing pronunciation with only the 26 unaccented letters of the alphabet is always tricky, but here I think it's even more so. What sound could "ehr" possibly refer to?

"Eh" is by itself a bit problematical. Ordinarily, English-speakers will use it in ad-hoc phonetic spelling to represent the vowel in _bed_ or the French word _sec,_ so that, for example, _Ceratosaurus_ might be represented as "seh-rat-oh-SORE-us"--an example found on the Internet via Google. But "eh" by itself, as in the Canadian question tag _eh? _can also be pronounced exactly like the French _é._


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## RuK

I meant by "ehr" the espèèère sound.


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## roland098

I understood you, because I know how the grave accent is meant to affect the e -- essentially, lengthening it -- but I am just asking myself if, if fact, it does have such an effect or not. You've answered me with your opinion that it actually doesn't seem to do much and is more a convention, si je comprends bien.

I mean, in words that have -ère in them, for xample, generally I can;t see it would make a difference to the sound if it was just ere.


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## clairet

It would be nice to have a francophone contribution.  I'm really having trouble understanding the view that it makes no difference but that's probably my denseness.


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## roland098

Take a simple word like ma mère. Why should you say it any differently if it was written ma mere? There would be no reason to say it as though it had an acute accent on it.


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## mplsray

roland098 said:


> I understood you, because I know how the grave accent is meant to affect the e -- essentially, lengthening it -- but I am just asking myself if, if fact, it does have such an effect or not. You've answered me with your opinion that it actually doesn't seem to do much and is more a convention, si je comprends bien.
> 
> I mean, in words that have -ère in them, for xample, generally I can;t see it would make a difference to the sound if it was just ere.


 

I wonder if its a question not of the spelling, but of whether the vowel-plus-_r _combination occurs at the end of a word. _Mer_ and _mère_ (and _maire_) have the same vowel-plus-_r_ combination, but the vowel in _ermite _and _erreur _seems (to me at least) to be a bit shorter.


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## clairet

roland098 said:


> Take a simple word like ma mère. Why should you say it any differently if it was written ma mere? There would be no reason to say it as though it had an acute accent on it.


 
Are you suggesting that the grave accent is just a fossil and the French would do well to give it up?


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## konungursvia

There is a difference. The è is pronouced as /3/ (but it should be backwards 3 in the real IPA) as in mère, whereas the e without the accent is normally pronounced /e/ (but it should be upside down in the true IPA).


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## moicestjoe

*è--*Open mid front unrounded vowel (p*e*t, m*e*t, forg*e*t)
*e--*Close mid-front rounded vowel (*u*nsure, f*u*n)
*é--*Close mid-front unrounded vowel (d*ay*, pl*ay*, aw*ay*)

Obviously the english (american pronunciation) examples are just approximations, but they give a basic idea. Don't let a French person tell you there isn't a distinction! It may seem natural and small to them but I've found when you mess it up people don't understand you. Le poisson ne voit pas l'eau!


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## frodon

moicestjoe said:


> *è--*Open mid front unrounded vowel (p*e*t, m*e*t, forg*e*t)
> *e--*Close mid-front rounded vowel (*u*nsure, f*u*n)
> *é--*Close mid-front unrounded vowel (d*ay*, pl*ay*, aw*ay*)
> 
> Obviously the english (american pronunciation) examples are just approximations, but they give a basic idea. Don't let a French person tell you there isn't a distinction! It may seem natural and small to them but I've found when you mess it up people don't understand you. Le poisson ne voit pas l'eau!


 
good examples!

it's hard to explain but yes there is a distinction!


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## dnldnl

è is used in words where it is followed by a _consonant_ and _e_ (where _e_ is not pronounced), e.g.: mère, sème, cède, espère...


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## roland098

konungursvia said:


> There is a difference. The è is pronouced as /3/ (but it should be backwards 3 in the real IPA) as in mère, whereas the e without the accent is normally pronounced /e/ (but it should be upside down in the true IPA).


 
I know the IPA sounds in French, but the upside down e is the sound in le, for example. You would rarely be tempted to use it in place of the è, were the è to be writen without the accent.

Clairet, I'm not necessarily suggesting that, I was just seeking thoughts about why it's used and what effect it has, that's all. Since it's effect is less obvious than the acute accent.

Why is it needed in, for example, réverbère (on the 3rd, but NOT second) but not, for example, tonnerre? It must be there to remind you of the right pronunciation, and yet, with the mute e on the end of the word it's obvious the er part is not pronounced, for example, as in the infinitive of an -er verb. Thinking out loud - it's a long time since I read any Old French - might some of those words have ended without the mute e at one stage, hence the need to remind the reader not to pronounce the e as if it was the é-type sound found at the end of, eg, manger

PS I don;t necessarily think all 'fossil' accents need removing anyway, even though they do make the language a little harder to write.


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## roland098

dnldnl said:


> è is used in words where it is followed by a _consonant_ and _e_ (where _e_ is not pronounced), e.g.: mère, sème, cède, espère...


 
Mm, I suppose it is, can't think of any exceptions right now.


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## Outsider

moicestjoe said:


> *è--*Open mid front unrounded vowel (p*e*t, m*e*t, forg*e*t)
> *e--*Close mid-front rounded vowel (*u*nsure, f*u*n)
> *é--*Close mid-front unrounded vowel (d*ay*, pl*ay*, aw*ay*)


I know you said those were just approximations, but I have to say that I don't like them. (It's not your fault; all books written for native English speakers seem to use that kind of explanation.) The *é sound is a simple vowel, not a diphthong, unlike "ay"*.

The plain truth is that this sound does not exist alone in standard English. That's why you can't tell the difference between é and è.

And, yes, it does matter. _Dès_ (pronounced "dè") and _des_ (pronounced "dé") are different words, with different meanings and pronunciations.

A possibly useless hint: you can hear a good approximation of the é sound in Australian English words such as "bed", "get", etc.


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## Outsider

roland098 said:


> Why is it needed in, for example, réverbère (on the 3rd, but NOT second) but not, for example, tonnerre? It must be there to remind you of the right pronunciation, and yet, with the mute e on the end of the word it's obvious the er part is not pronounced [...]


Première --> premièrement. If "premiere" did not have an accent, you would have to remind yourself to add it in compounds.


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## Cath.S.

roland098 said:


> Take a simple word like ma mère. Why should you say it any differently if it was written ma mere? There would be no reason to say it as though it had an acute accent on it.


It ma mère were written ma mere, then we would pronounce it ma "meure".
Je ferais => je "feurais"
je serai => je "seurai"


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## Outsider

Je ne suis pas d'accord, Geve, parce que "mère" termine avec un "e" muet, mais les autres deux mots sont accentués à la dernière syllabe.


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## Cath.S.

Outsider said:


> Je ne suis pas d'accord, Geve, parce que "mère" termine avec un "e" muet, mais les autres deux mots sont accentués à la dernière syllabe.


Objection retenue, et je m'appelle Egueule.


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## Outsider

Oh, mille perdons, Egueule !


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## Outsider

roland098 said:


> Sometimes, mostly other letter I think (?) it serves to differenciate words, not to change the sound, as in à and a, ou and où.


You are correct, though, that the grave accent on à and ù only serves to differentiate homophones.


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## noMeDigas

roland098 said:


> Mm, I suppose it is, can't think of any exceptions right now.



This is the rule I used for accent grave (excluding words like: très, près, à, après, etc).  However, today someone pointed out this exception:  circonflexe.  Why would this be an exception to the -e(accent grave)-consonant-e(silent) rule?  Any ideas?


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## clairet

dnldnl said:


> è is used in words where it is followed by a _consonant_ and _e_ (where _e_ is not pronounced), e.g.: mère, sème, cède, espère...



très?

Looking at this many years after the original discussion, and considering how the WR dico shows the pronunciation of the interesting example of "réverbère" (no difference between sounds of "e" and "è"), I am almost convinced by roland098's idea of no difference in general.  I still can't help feeling there's maybe some underlying rule since although I make lots of mistakes in French this isn't one of them.


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## Salvatos

Je ne citerai pas toute l'info et je n'ai pas fouillé les sources, mais on donne ici des règles pour tous ces accents selon la graphie du mot concerné :
http://orthonet.sdv.fr/pages/informations_p6.html

Notamment :


> • la lettre E à l’intérieur du mot s’écrit sans accent quand elle n’est pas en fin de syllabe :
> EX.:  Estimer - dEstin – pErte – in/té/rEs/sant
> 
> • la lettre E en fin de syllabe à l’intérieur du mot :
> a) s’écrit È et se prononce è ouvert si la syllabe suivante a un " e muet " :
> EX. : frÈ/re - fidÈ/le – fidÈ/lement –évÈ/nement -  allÈ/grement – crÈ/merie – rÈ/glementaire - promÈ/ne - tolÈ/rent –adhÈ/rera


et :


> • la lettre E en syllabe finale suivi de la consonne S s’écrit È et se prononce è ouvert (sauf devant un S de pluriel) :
> EX .    auprÈs – exprÈs – progrÈs



Je ne me prononcerai pas sur l'utilité de l'accent, surtout qu'ici son usage dévie de la norme.


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## clairet

Merci Salvatos.  Pour moi maintenant c'est clair - il faut regarder les syllabes, toutes les syllabes.


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## guillaumedemanzac

dnldnl said:


> è is used in words where it is followed by a _consonant_ and _e_ (where _e_ is not pronounced), e.g.: mère, sème, cède, espère...



Yes, the silent "e" lengthens the first "e", so the accent is unnecessary e.g. bet and alpha-bète/bête and an and âne (to mix English and French is a mistake e.g. an/an !!!!!).

I think the "é" must be differentated but I don't bother with the others  -- except in writing where the "à" is necessary for disambiguation - but is not necessary in speech.  

But I'm English and dislike accents because of keyboard problems - hopefully they will mostly disappear in French as computers and texts/SMS slowly take over via the younger generation, leaving us pedants to hold this sort of discussion.

Il va à la maison.     Il a une maison à Manzac.  Il y a 5 ânes à sa maison à Manzac.  (but the donkey here has a silent "e" so I think that lengthens the "a". The other "a"s are the same IMHO except for the first "a" in Manzac and in Maison, maybe, maybe.


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