The hat accent, or circumflex accent (^), is placed on top of vowels in French words and does not change the pronunciation of the vowel. It indicates that the word originally contained an 's' in the middle ages that has since disappeared. This is useful for English speakers to know as the 's' is often still present in the English equivalent word. For example, hôtel comes from hostel and maître from master. The accent is also why the verb être is conjugated with an e or s starting sound. Additionally, the accents é and è produce slight pronunciation differences in French, with é sounding like the e in café and è like the e in mère, though these sounds can be spelled

1. ACCENTS IN FRENCH
Produced with assistance from the Association of Independent Schools of NSW
` ‘
‘ ^
^ `

2. L’accent circonflexe en
français
^ ^
^ ^
^ ^

3. The “hat accent”, as we call it, can be
put on top of all the vowels in
French:
a => â
e => ê
i => î
o => ô
u => û

4. Important: this accent never changes
the pronunciation of the vowel itself.
All it does is tell us that there used to be an s
in the word in the middle ages which has since
disappeared.
This is very useful to know for an English
speaker because that “s” is often still present
in the English equivalent as shown in the
various examples:

5. French English
hôtel hostel
forêt forest
maître master
pâtes pasta
se hâter to hasten
une quête a quest
un hôte,une hôtesse a host, a hostess
un hôpital a hospital
la côte the coast

6. The case of être
NB it also explain why when you conjugate the
verb être, it always starts with either an e or an s
je suis, nous sommes,
tu es, vous êtes,
il est, ils sont,
elle est, elles sont

7. é versus è
` ` `

8. With these two accents there is a
slight nuance in the pronunciation in
French.
• é [ e] like in café (note the sense
of the stroke for acute)
• è [ ε] like in mère (note the sense
of the stroke for grave)

9. The hard part…
• These two phonetic sounds can be
written in a number of ways.
• Memorising this will improve
dramatically your reading ability in
French

10. These are the different ways these
sounds can be spelt:
• [ e] du thé, une épée, s’appeler,
chez
• [ε] chère, le chêne, une princesse,
une reine, une baie