Today I’ll explain how to pronounce the acute accent, called l’accent aigu, in French. This is the upward slanting accent mark (´) which only appears over the letter e in as: é or É. The pronunciation is [e] or “ay”.
Accent name + pronunciation
e accent aigu: é
E accute accent: é [ay]
Acute accent pronunciation
In French, the e accent aigu is pronounced [é] or ay. The usage of the accute accent in French does not imply syllable stress, unlike other Romance langauges such as Spanish.
Example sentences
In Modern French, the e with the acute accent (é) often replaced an -es in Old French. In this first example, été (summer) in Modern French comes from esté in Old French.
L’été: J’aime aller à la plage en été.
Summer: I like to go to the beach in the summer.
In this example, école (school) in Modern French comes from escole in Old French.
L’école: J’apprends le français à l’école.
School: I’m learning French in school.
For this example, the Modern French word état (state) comes from estat in Old French.
États-Unis: J’habite aux États-Unis depuis huit ans.
United States. I’ve been living in the United States for eight years.
In the passé composé (a French past tense), an é replaces the -ER on the infinitive to form the past participle for regular ER verbs. Hence, manger (to eat) becomes mangé (ate).
Mangé: J’ai trop mangé ce soir.
Ate. I ate too much tonight.
For some stem changing verbs with a double -é in the infinitive such as répéter (to repeat), the second é becomes an e with a grave accent (è) in the je, tu, il/elle and ils/elles forms. The è is pronounced “eh” or [ɛ].
Répète: Je répète la phrase.
Repeat: I repeat the sentence.
Conclusion
Et voilà ! Now you have a very good idea of how to read and pronounce the e accent aigu in French. Now check out our lesson providing an overview of French accent marks as well as our lesson explaining the grave accent, the downward slanting accent mark (`), in detail.
![The acute accent or accent aigu is a French accent market that appears over the letter e to form "é" and is pronounced [e] or "ay".](https://www.frenchlearner.com/wp-content/uploads/2024/06/acute-aigu-accent.jpg)
References
