How to Write in French
The French language might look complicated to beginners, with its silent letters and accents, but it has rules that make it relatively simple for you to write out what you want correctly. The use of diacritical marks, double letters and other writing conventions is not arbitrary, and can be learned.
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Instructions
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Capitalization
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Do not capitalize personal pronouns unless they start a sentence or quote. French does not capitalize "je," as English capitalizes "I."
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Lowercase the names of months and days. For example, English capitalizes "Monday," but the French "lundi" remains lowercase.
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3
Lowercase the names of nationalities, languages and ethnic groups. You would capitalize words like "English" and "Italian" in English, but you'd leave "anglais" and "italien" lowercase.
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4
Pay attention to job titles. AskOxford.com notes that titles such as "Madame le Directrice" are capitalized when talking about a specific person, and the noun is replacing the person's name. However, you'll use lowercase letters for a title when it's used as a description followed by a name.
Additional Letters and Quotes
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Add a second "n" when converting nationality adjectives that end in -en or -on from masculine to feminine. For example, "italien" becomes "italienne." The "e" at the end of the word is the feminine ending.
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Add an "e" after a stem-final "g" before endings beginning with "o" or "a." The website French Linguistics uses the verb "manger" (to eat) as an example. The first person plural, or "we" form of the verb, should end in -ons. However, "g" has a different pronunciation depending on the vowel following it. The extra "e" in "mangeons" lets the first person plural form of the word retain the original sound.
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Write quotation marks using pointed double brackets, << and >>, rather than English quote marks. A dialogue may use dashes in front of each person's words instead of brackets.
Diacritics
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Add an acute accent, or "accent aigu" in French, to the letter "e" if the word you're writing calls for you to pronounce the "e" like -ey, as in "hey." Leaving the accent off would signal to a reader that the "e" is pronounced like a normal French "e," which is reduced to almost a schwa sound ("uh"). If you were drawing the accent in an invisible box on top of the letter, the acute accent would start in the lower left corner and rise diagonally to the top right.
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Add a grave accent, or "accent grave" in French, to "e" when it is pronounced like English "pet" or "pen." Note that the grave accent attaches to "a" or "u" depending on a word's meaning; you'll have to memorize these as you learn them. The grave accent travels from the top left corner of that imaginary box to the lower right.
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10
Use two dots above the second vowel of a two-vowel pair to signal that both vowels are pronounced separately, rather than as a diphthong. This mark is sometimes called an umlaut or diaeresis; the French word is "trema." Place the dots over the "u" in a "ue" combination.
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11
Memorize words that involve a vowel topped by a circumflex, or ^ symbol. This indicates either a change in pronunciation or that another letter in a past form of the word was dropped.
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12
Convert a "c" to a "c" with a cedilla when the "c" appears before endings beginning with "o," "u" or "a." Like "g," the letter "c" changes its pronunciation before those vowels. The cedilla mark, which looks like a small comma attached to the bottom of the letter, transforms the pronunciation of a segment like "ca" from "ka" to "sa."
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Tips & Warnings
The French language underwent spelling reform in 1990, and you might encounter writing that sticks to older rules.
French writing conventions involve much more than the rules here; these are basic guidelines.
References
Resources
- Photo Credit Old fashioned French missional souvenir image by Jean Paul Beumer from Fotolia.com
