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I know that ê is pronounced the same way as è, î the same as i; ô and â are slightly different than o and a, though I can't really hear the difference. Ideally, I am looking for a general rule indicating when to write the circumflex accent. Is there any, or should I just learn by heart when to use one?

I am talking about nouns; circumflex accents in verbal forms (such as in passé simple "nous chantâmes") are a different topic.

user16924
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2 Answers2

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There is no straightforward rule for this so you'll have to learn to some extent. However, you can definitely get some hints in many cases provided you speak English (which has many common roots with French).

As a reminder, circumflex accents are used:

  1. to replace a "lost" letter (fenêtre - fenestron);
  2. to modify pronunciation (pôle, arôme, infâme, grâce);
  3. to distinguish between homonyms (mur - mûr / sur - sûr);
  4. in conjugation of verbs (chantâmes, as you mentioned).

Case 4 obeys grammar rules and is not part of your question.

Cases 2 and 3: I am afraid you have to learn by heart, but those cases are not so frequent.

Case 1: that is the most frequent case, and luckily that's also were you can use your knowledge about languages or etymology. You have to remember words from the same family, where one has a circumflex accent and the other has an additional letter (which usually is an "s"). So if you know the word "fenestron", you'll easily remember the circumflex accent in "fenêtre".

Here is a list of French words, followed by English (and some French) words where an additional "s" reminds you to put a circumflex accent in the French word.

Ancêtre - ancestor (French: ancestral)

Août - August

Apôtre - apostle

Bête - beast (French: bestial)

Château, châtelain - castle

Châtier - to chastise, to castigate

Conquête - conquest

Côte - coast

Coût, coûter - cost

Dépôt - deposit

Fête, fêter - feast (French: festoyer, festin, festivités, festival)

Forêt - forest (French: forestier, déforestation)

Goût, dégoûter - to disgust (French: gustatif)

Guêpe - wasp

Hâte, hâter - hast

Honnête, honnêteté - honest

Hôpital - hospital (French: hospitaliser)

Hôtel, hôte, hôtesse - hostel, host, guest

Île - island, isolation (French: isolé, isolation)

Intérêt - interest, interesting

Maître, maîtrise, maîtriser - master (French: bourgmestre)

Mât - mast

Pâques - paschal (French: pascal)

Pâte, pâté, pâtisserie - paste

Prêtre - priest

Quête - quest

Rôti, rôtir - to roast

Tâche - task

Tempête - tempest

Glorfindel
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user8487873
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Under the French spelling reforms of 1990, there are only four places one should use the circumflex on i and u:

  1. The conjugation of the first and second person plural of the passé simple and the third person singular of the passé du subjonctif, e.g. nous vécûmes;
  2. Where it indicates different pronunciation, e.g. jeune /ʒœn/ vs. jeûne /ʒøn/;
  3. The masculine singular of the adjectives dû, mûr, and sûr, to distinguish them from du, mur, and sur; and
  4. The forms of the verb croitre that, without a circumflex, could be mistaken for parallel forms of the verb croire (e.g. je crus [from croire] but je crûs [from croitre]).
EMBLEM
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    Spelling can't be "reformed", though. Spelling is spelling. – user8487873 May 12 '18 at 22:41
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    @user8487873 Don't blame me, blame the Académie. – EMBLEM May 12 '18 at 23:18
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    @user8487873 Indeed... spelling is quite easy to reform and it's been done many times! It's everyday usage that can't be reformed. :) – Luke Sawczak May 12 '18 at 23:25
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    @EMBLEM Why would I blame the Académie? They state my opinion much better than I would: 1, 2 – user8487873 May 12 '18 at 23:58
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    @user8487873 Good links. They aren't responsible, and they think it's not a good thing, but they don't say it's impossible or has never been successfully done (except insofar as one might pedantically call them something less positive than "reform"). This is a position I agree with... and it would be hard to deny that writing, a language system not spontaneously used but learned by education, can be and has been changed systemwide, e.g. in Spanish. Value judgements of course may vary! But spelling isn't just spelling, it's an arbitrary and changeable set of conventions. – Luke Sawczak May 13 '18 at 17:14
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    @Luke Of course spelling can change, I never denied it. The point is: it is not changed/reformed because of a decree or a law. The government has no mandate to decide it. I am afraid some naive people were tricked into thinking that there is a "legally right" way to write, and even that the almighty Académie was deciding it all from above. The truth is quite the opposite. – user8487873 May 13 '18 at 18:04
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    Now my friendly advice to anybody learning French: if you want to write in correct French, be aware that correct (modern) French is how the huge majority of French speaking authors wrote in the XXth century and certainly will in the XXIth century too. So e.g. use the circumflex accents where it is useful or has a logical or historical reason. That's just if you want to write in correct French though, and after all you can decide it's not something for you. No problem. – user8487873 May 13 '18 at 18:09
  • @user8487873 But that's my point: governments have sometimes mandated spelling and history shows that it can work, even if it hasn't taken off in French in particular. It works because writing is a conventional behaviour passed on by regulated authorities, unlike the spontaneous/natural behaviour of speech that you could neither make nor prevent a kid from doing. In any case, we agree on the takeaways that prescriptivism springs from a misunderstanding of language and that standard French orthography has mostly resisted the 1990 reforms — and perhaps even that the latter is a bullet dodged... – Luke Sawczak May 13 '18 at 19:12