williamylee

[flat quarry]

Please be patient

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

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Make it descriptive, including relevant context, but also to the point. This way you improve your chances of getting a more relevant and specific answer.

[steep anchor]

« connais » and « connaît » are pronounced exactly the same
they are spelled differently because each one belongs to a specific grammatical person
that is, you would use « connais » for the pronouns je and tu, whereas you would use « connaît » for the pronouns il, elle, and on
this is what's called verb conjugation in French

as you can see, the verb connaître is spelled differently depending on the grammatical person used

[frigid narwhal]

I understand the different conjugations, but why only "il/elle" conjugation has this î?

[steep anchor]

because that is how the verb works

it's how people use it

i don't have a better reason 💀

[frigid narwhal]

that... does not really help

[steep anchor]

well, there are some other verbs that behave just like connaître

such as naître, paraître

see? similar endings

[frigid narwhal]

Interesting

so all the naître ending words

has naît conjugation for il/elle, but nai__ conjugation for others

[frail pebble]

The accent is there because it was originally connaist. (Or even connoist from connoistre before that.)
Like how forêt used to be forest, île isle, etc.

[steep anchor]

also, it can be omitted
both « connaît » and « connait » are considered acceptable

[marsh jetty]

well actually yes, but in theory the circumflex represents a lost S, and therefore lengthens the vowel due to the loss of the S, but that distinction is lost as you mentioned except around belgium.

fête traditionally has a longer E than faite

but saying fête as faite is perfectly acceptable nowadays

[steep anchor]

interesting…