medk | French - Learn French in a friendly community! | Page 1

tidal willowBOT Jul 12, 2024, 1:13 AM

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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.

fresh plume Jul 12, 2024, 1:22 AM

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yes it's half true. words like hôpital, fête, pâte, etc. are written with an accent circonflexe to show that they were previously written with an s - hospital, feste, paste, etc. in these cases the accent has no effect on the pronunciation.

on the other hand, some verbs are written with an circumflex to show they have two possibile pronunciations

take gêrer for example, it can be pronounced gérer (infinitive) or gère (conjugated)

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some verbs just have the accent because of old french spellings

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don't worry about them, they can be ignored

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you'll also see the ^ in some (admittedly rare) conjugaisons like the passé simple et it's derivatives, l'imparfait du subjonctif for example, but they are put there to distinguish conjugaisons and don't change the pronunciation either

ce fut
que ce fût

daring hatch Jul 12, 2024, 1:27 AM

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thank you! What about the one in débâcler though? Is it differentiating something?

fresh plume Jul 12, 2024, 1:27 AM

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no, it's the old french spellings that has not yet been simplified

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no change on pronunciation

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treat it like a normal a

daring hatch Jul 12, 2024, 1:28 AM

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fresh plume no, it's the old french spellings that has not yet been simplified

'yet'? Is it possible that the Académie Française(?) will tweak it?

fresh plume Jul 12, 2024, 1:28 AM

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the last time was on 1960 I believe so never say never 😅

daring hatch Jul 12, 2024, 1:29 AM

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TIL about that

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I'd only heard about the 1990 oignon thing

fresh plume Jul 12, 2024, 1:29 AM

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daring hatch 'yet'? Is it possible that the Académie Française(?) will tweak it?

sorry, I'm wrong, it was in 1990

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yes that's the one

wild ingot Jul 12, 2024, 6:02 AM

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ô, â and ê can have a different pronunciation from o, a and e, depending on the speaker

î and û are always the same

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In a handful words they indicate the deletion of another letter (like n in âme < anima), but in the vast majority of cases it's a former s

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