French Alphabet Vs. English Alphabet
French uses the same Roman alphabet that English does, with similar pronunciations. You could say, however, that French has more letters, because it makes heavy use of accent marks to distinguish between two sounds from the same letter. In English, for example, you learn that the c's in "can" and "cent" are said differently, and you learn to figure out which to use on new words as you go along. In French, an accent makes it more obvious.
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Cedilla
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A cedilla in French looks like a comma attached to the bottom of a c. It denotes a soft c (like the English "s"), as in "français" or "garçon." Without the cedilla, it is a hard c (like the English "k"), as in "courgette" or "décolletage."
Acute Accent
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The acute accent was adopted into the French language from Greek, along with two other varieties. It is one of the most common accents used in French and indicates that an "e" is pronounced with more of an "ay" sound. Examples include "café" and "décor." It is written above the "e" at a 45-degree angle, starting from the bottom left and going up toward the top right.
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Grave Accent
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The grave accent is also derived from Greek. It also is expressed as a 45-degree-angle slash above the "e" or any other vowel, though it moves from low on the right to up on the left. It doesn't really have an effect on pronunciation; instead, distinguishes two words that would otherwise look the same, such as "a," which is a form of the verb "to have," and "à," which means "at" or "to." Both are pronounced "ah." Another example is "ou," meaning "or," and "où," meaning "where." Both of these words rhyme with "too."
Umlaut/Dieresis
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The umlaut, also called a dieresis, goes over a vowel in the French language. It tells you that the two vowels next to each other are both pronounced, as in "Noël," for Christmas. You can see the pronunciation difference clearly with "mais," which means "but" and is pronounced "may," and "maïs," which means "corn" and is pronounced "mah-EESE."
Circumflex
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The little "hat" that sits on top of some letters doesn't affect pronunciation. It's another Greek contribution. It usually marks the place in a word where an s used to be, as in hôpital or bête (beast). Some people who wish to reform the French language even want to get rid of it altogether.
Ligatures
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Two "letters" appear in the French alphabet that aren't in the English alphabet. Called ligatures, they're actually two vowels mashed together: "œ" and "æ." "Æ" is quite rare, used in words that still retain their Greek or Latin origins, such as "ex æquo." "'" is more common, used in the word "œil" ("oy"), meaning "eye," "sœur" ("sir") for "sister"; and "œuf" (sort of like "euf") for "egg."
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References
- Photo Credit alphabet background, retro style image by Stasys Eidiejus from Fotolia.com
