Questions tagged [diacritiques]

Signes ajoutés aux lettres, tels les accents (aigu, grave, circonflexe), la cédille ou le tréma.

68 questions
14
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8 answers

Can I drop French accents when writing computer text in French?

I use the en-US keyboard, and as such, I lack access to any accents. I need to copy and paste letters with accents from Wikipedia every time I write French, which is very annoying. Is it acceptable to just drop the accents when writing French in…
Rakete1111
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7
votes
5 answers

Mots avec et sans accent avec un sens différent

Bonjour, Existe-t-il une liste exhaustive des mots (je cherche surtout des noms communs et noms propres) dont le sens est différent selon qu'il est écrit avec ou sans accents (ou autres diacritiques). Par exemple : maïs (plante) vs mais…
6
votes
1 answer

Circumflex in "théâtre"

I already asked about the use of circumflex accents to mark the former presence of a deleted letter here: Circumflex and deletion of letters. The word "théâtre" in French requires the circumflex accent on the "a", and this is the only currently…
Maiaux
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5
votes
2 answers

Circumflex and deletion of letters

As is well known, one use of the circumflex in French is to mark the former presence of a deleted letter (typically "s", as in fenêtre/fenestre). However, I can't seem to find many examples of disappearing letters different from "s". This Wikipedia…
Maiaux
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3
votes
1 answer

Omitting diacritics on a display with limited character set

I have to display French on a display with fixed/limited character set. It is missing all the capital letters with diacritics. Specifically: À Â È Ê Ë Î Ï Ô Ù Û Do the graves only indicate pronunciation or or also semantics? Would it be fine to just…
Rev
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3
votes
2 answers

Are there any rules about circumflex accents?

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…
user16924
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2
votes
1 answer

Quand faut-il écrire l'accent grave ou aigu sur le e

Bonjour, Suite à une question récente portant sur le mot célèbre, je me suis demandé pourquoi ce mot portait un accent grave devant deux consonnes, alors que le mot sélection par exemple n'en a pas. J'ai fait quelques recherches et tous les sites ne…
XouDo
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2
votes
0 answers

Accents on uppercase letters

Possible Duplicate: Accentuation des majuscules Is there a consensus in France about showing, or not showing, accents on uppercase letters? Apart from the circumflex, which seems to be shown as a general rule, I don't see much consistency even…
abacus
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1
vote
2 answers

When is /e/ written with accent aigu in the first and second syllables?

The vowel /e/ in the first (and second) syllable of a French word is sometimes written with an accent aigu, sometimes without. Is there a rule for this? Examples: First syllable /e/ written "é": répondre, préparer, détester, énerver /e/ written…
user22932
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1
vote
3 answers

Accents in casual written conversation

My mother tongue, Romanian, has a bunch of diacritics, like ă â î ș ț. All of them change drastically the way the sound is pronounced (for example, while s is pronounced as the s in song, ș is pronounced as sh in shell). However, in the casual…
Paul92
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0
votes
1 answer

éthos ou ethos?

Je suis en train de traduire un texte assez difficile du grec en français et je me trouve pas mal de fois coincée dans des héllénismes qui n'ont pas toujours des équivalents en français. Quand je suis tombée sur ἤθος j'étais sûre que je pouvais…
fev
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0
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1 answer

Why is there an acute accent from some conjugations of "mener" in present tense indicative?

The Collins diction provides present tense indicative conjugation of "mener". All conjugations have an acute accent above the 1st "e", except for "nous" and "vous". If I listen to the online pronunciation, the first syllable sounds the same for…
user2153235
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