rev03423

[prime wharf]

Please be patient

Our volunteers look into many questions every day; sometimes it takes them a little while to answer.

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[unique solstice]

memorisation is how i learnt✨

the silly little hat in île, hôpital
the accent in problème all come from memorising

[wooden birch]

A verb will have the e either receive an accent or change accents when the bit after the last consonant of the stem is unpronounced. (The endings -rai, ras, etc. in simple future as well as -rais, -rait, etc. in conditional are their own syllables separated from e before them, therefore the vowel is also mute.)

Basically, when the last e goes unpronounced (the same goes with es and ent), the pronunciation shifts to the previous e.

[blissful shale]

so in préfère and préfères i don't pronounce the last e?

[unique solstice]

yes

because if you do so it sounds like préféré

which is past participle for sth like passé composé

j'ai préféré

(j-ay prefer-ay)

[dawn kelp]

I guess the accents are also supposed to reflect the pronunciation, é is like ai, è is like est

[blissful shale]

wait ai has not the same pronunciation as est?

or like je and j'ai?

[dawn kelp]

no, they are pronounced quite differently at least to my ears

[patent solar]

You first start by memorizing but you just familiarize yourself with them

For example

The verb « Harceler »

Even before I saw it I expected an accent grave on the e

Je harcèle

You kinda get a gist of how French works

Even with verbs you’ve never seen before

[blissful shale]

ok i'm with google translator rn and i heard the exact same pronunciation

[blissful shale]

it's like that with every verb? well that's kind of easy

[dawn kelp]

é is like how you pronounce ai (in rigorous french), -ez, -er, et, es;
è is like how you pronounce est (as in est-ce que)

é is closer to the English letter A, while è is closer to the "e" in "let"

[patent solar]

There are conjugation models for verbs

For example the verb Finir goes in the choisir model

Je finis -> Je choisis
Tu finis -> Tu choisis
Il finit -> Il choisit
Nous finissons -> Nous choisissons

And so on

[blissful shale]

ahh, now i see it, thx

[blissful shale]

yeah, i know those -ir verbs

but "i" doesn't go with an accent like "e", right?