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French e, è, é, ê, ë – what's the difference?

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Re: French e, è, é, ê, ë – what's the difference?

#71

Post by nbernard »

> Ë with diaeresis is the easiest case to deal with. The diaeresis (the two dots) signifies that the underlying “e” is pronounced as /ɛ/ (as “e” in “bet”, i.e. the open e), no matter what comes around it, and is used in groups of vowels that would otherwise be pronounced differently.

Yes, but there are other uses. For instance, in "ambiguë", the ë itself is silent but signals that the u before it is pronounced as a standard u. Without the diaeresis, the u itself would be silent but would make the g hard (in French, g before e is soft).

Re: French e, è, é, ê, ë – what's the difference?

#72

Post by Muromec »

huhtenberg wrote: post #51

If there's one thing I wish someone pointed out when I was just starting learning French is this: é - the accent is pointing up, so it's a higher-pitched e è - the accent is pointing down, so it's a lower-pitched e That's it. That's how it should be explained. * It's also in their names - aigu and grave, but this requires knowing what these words mean.

> That's it. That's how it should be explained.

That's contingent on your ability to imagine sounds doing ups and downs.

Re: French e, è, é, ê, ë – what's the difference?

#73

Post by _ache_ »

huhtenberg wrote: post #51

If there's one thing I wish someone pointed out when I was just starting learning French is this: é - the accent is pointing up, so it's a higher-pitched e è - the accent is pointing down, so it's a lower-pitched e That's it. That's how it should be explained. * It's also in their names - aigu and grave, but this requires knowing what these words mean.

And ê, when pronounced (most of the cases) it's just a è.

ë, contrary as said in the article (full slop?) is the most complicated and with some exceptions. But there is so few words that use that letter that you just don't have to care.

Just pronounce ë as è when its in (inside) a word and not pronounced at all when it's at the end. The only exception I can think of is canoë (pronounced conoé), but everybody will understand if you say cano.

Re: French e, è, é, ê, ë – what's the difference?

#74

Post by jagged-chisel »

kergonath wrote: post #44
khancyr wrote: post #9

French person here : no differences, we pronounce them all é and we don't care. For record, if ever you are ashamed to have some accent in french, one current top show in France with French people on it got french subtitles (about farmer looking for love)

> French person here : no differences, we pronounce them all é and we don't care. That is very far from the truth, and unhelpful. Yes, some people have accents, but it’s not because you cannot hear the difference (or at least claim you cannot) that it does not exist. Out of curiosity, how do you pronounce "il a fermé la fenêtre"? For non-French people: there are accents in which é and è are most of the time very simi…

> ... but claiming that your particular pronunciation is the one true way is ridiculous.

Ah, so you're not Parisian.

Re: French e, è, é, ê, ë – what's the difference?

#75

Post by Muromec »

nathan_douglas wrote: post #10

I'm trying to get to B2/C1 in French and intend to move to France in 2028. Over the years I've picked up a little Spanish here, took a few years of German there, etc. Recently I read _Erec and Enide_ [1] and it was really cool to be able to find the original Old French version of it and read large parts of it (not the whole thing) and find it so much easier to read than Early Middle English like the _Ancrene Wisse_ […

Is it even possible to actually learn the language without living in the environment, where it gets in your face all the time?

Re: French e, è, é, ê, ë – what's the difference?

#76

Post by throwaway894345 »

abrowne wrote: post #13
strongpigeon wrote: post #5

As a native (Québécois) French speaker who's been living in the US for most of my adult life, something I miss from French is that once you've learned the (many) rules, you can be pretty confident about how to pronounce a given word. English on the other hand has so many exceptions (usually based on the origin of the word), that I still encounter words that I'll mispronounce at first. I can typically pass as a native…

The other way – trying to spell a word you hear – is harder, since many sounds have multiple possible spellings. Hence la dictée .

Yeah, this is my major difficulty with French, and it's even more difficult in colloquial spoken French which may drop entire syllables or words. I often find African pronunciations of French to be easier because they seem to pronounce each syllable distinctly.

Re: French e, è, é, ê, ë – what's the difference?

#77

Post by jagged-chisel »

kerblang wrote: post #47
khancyr wrote: post #9

French person here : no differences, we pronounce them all é and we don't care. For record, if ever you are ashamed to have some accent in french, one current top show in France with French people on it got french subtitles (about farmer looking for love)

Many Americans turn on subtitles when watching tv/movies Gone are the days when American actors flaunted those crisply enunciated albeit preposterous "continental" accents

subtitles aren't only about accents. Have you heard the audio mixes in entertainment?

Re: French e, è, é, ê, ë – what's the difference?

#78

Post by throwaway894345 »

wat10000 wrote: post #59
isolli wrote: post #27

Earlier quoted context omitted.

While helping my children learn French spelling, I was horrified when I realized that there are 6 or 7 ways to write the sound [ɛ̃]: un in (im) [i]en ain aim ein

Gotta get it right or you'll order some wind instead of some wine. (Did that once, and that's how the difference finally stuck for me.)

What did the server bring to your table? A fan?

Re: French e, è, é, ê, ë – what's the difference?

#79

Post by Muromec »

kulesh wrote: post #57

Polish s, ś, sz, z, ź, ż, rz, c, ć, cz, si, zi, ci – what's the difference? https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=47533035 :)

Westernmost Eastern Europeans would do anything but use the actual script that makes sense for their language. How hard is it to just use с, ш, щ, ч and ц like civilized peoples.
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