How to distinguish è é e ê

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LanguageLearner0007
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How to distinguish è é e ê

Postby LanguageLearner0007 » Mon May 09, 2022 9:53 pm

There are 4 variations of "e" in French, the difference in sound is too subtle to catch, they all sound more or less the same to an untrained ear.

How do you normally distinguish among those, without memorizing every single word? :?:
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Re: How to distinguish è é e ê

Postby Dragon27 » Mon May 09, 2022 10:42 pm

There are two E-like sounds in (standard Parisian) French - /e/ and /ɛ/. è/é/e/ê are letters (not sounds), and they can mean different things in different words. As a rule, è always means /ɛ/ (as does often, but not always, ê), and é - /e/. Although in unchecked pretonic syllables (sometimes even in the syllables before that) the height of the vowel can adjust to the height of the vowels after it (close, when followed by close vowels, and open, when followed by open vowels), the actual realization may vary between speakers. You can see how they give variant pronunciations in the dictionaries. Modern native speakers also often don't distinguish the word-final /e/ and /ɛ/ (pronouncing a sound in-between). Simple "e" without diacritics can mean /e/, /ɛ/, /ə/ (French schwa - a rounded sound) or just be silent. Sometimes it can even be /a/ (femme /fam/, évidemment /e.vi.da.mɑ̃/). And, of course, there are other orthographical ways to denote E-like sounds (like "ai"). Just look it up in the dictionary and over time you will develop your intuition for the orthography, if you pay some attention to the sound-letter correspondence.

What do you mean by "without memorizing every single word"? You memorize (explicitly or implicitly) every single new word in your target language anyway, how it's written and how it's pronounced (depending on the consistency of the language's orthography these two can be connected, or not), as well as its meaning, grammatical properties (like gender), the way it's actually used, etc.
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Re: How to distinguish è é e ê

Postby zenmonkey » Tue May 10, 2022 7:45 am

Dragon27 wrote:What do you mean by "without memorizing every single word"? You memorize (explicitly or implicitly) every single new word in your target language anyway, how it's written and how it's pronounced (depending on the consistency of the language's orthography these two can be connected, or not), as well as its meaning, grammatical properties (like gender), the way it's actually used, etc.


I think the OP means explicitly learning individual words as unrelated monods rather than orthographic-phoneme patterns.
You'll just need to listen and read a lot.
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Re: How to distinguish è é e ê

Postby Aloyse » Tue May 10, 2022 9:46 am

LanguageLearner0007 wrote:There are 4 variations of "e" in French

Are we talking about taking dictation or reading aloud or speaking?
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Re: How to distinguish è é e ê

Postby Le Baron » Tue May 10, 2022 1:16 pm

LanguageLearner0007 wrote:How do you normally distinguish among those, without memorizing every single word?


By taking a few (common) words each where they occur and familiarising oneself.
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Re: How to distinguish è é e ê

Postby Odair » Tue May 10, 2022 1:50 pm

You should not go around memorizing every single word. It's best to learn how the words are pronounced from listening, not from the complex rules that would be needed to convert spelling to sound. As you advance you will develop an intuition on how a word should be read, but this is an advanced skill that takes time to build.
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Re: How to distinguish è é e ê

Postby LanguageLearner0007 » Tue May 10, 2022 2:26 pm

Dragon27 wrote:There are two E-like sounds in (standard Parisian) French - /e/ and /ɛ/. è/é/e/ê are letters (not sounds), and they can mean different things in different words. As a rule, è always means /ɛ/ (as does often, but not always, ê), and é - /e/. Although in unchecked pretonic syllables (sometimes even in the syllables before that) the height of the vowel can adjust to the height of the vowels after it (close, when followed by close vowels, and open, when followed by open vowels), the actual realization may vary between speakers. You can see how they give variant pronunciations in the dictionaries. Modern native speakers also often don't distinguish the word-final /e/ and /ɛ/ (pronouncing a sound in-between). Simple "e" without diacritics can mean /e/, /ɛ/, /ə/ (French schwa - a rounded sound) or just be silent. Sometimes it can even be /a/ (femme /fam/, évidemment /e.vi.da.mɑ̃/). And, of course, there are other orthographical ways to denote E-like sounds (like "ai"). Just look it up in the dictionary and over time you will develop your intuition for the orthography, if you pay some attention to the sound-letter correspondence.

What do you mean by "without memorizing every single word"? You memorize (explicitly or implicitly) every single new word in your target language anyway, how it's written and how it's pronounced (depending on the consistency of the language's orthography these two can be connected, or not), as well as its meaning, grammatical properties (like gender), the way it's actually used, etc.


Thanks, I mean picking up patterns where it is more or less similar. For example, I learned that adjectives with -er often transform into -ère in the feminine form. By learning this pattern, I know that there is a good chance of the accent grave being used in such situations.

Are there any more patterns like this that favour the use of a particular accent?
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Re: How to distinguish è é e ê

Postby Dragon27 » Tue May 10, 2022 3:18 pm

Well, I don't know, past participles/verbal adjectives end with "é" (m) or "ée" (f) (and other alternatives). If you want patterns like that you should read something on French morphology (books, articles). Other than that, it's just part of the word. There's no rule that can tell you that "péter" is written with "é" and "jeter" with simple "e". Of course, the pronunciation \pe.te\ vs \ʒə.te\ doesn't give much of a choice.
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Re: How to distinguish è é e ê

Postby IronMike » Thu May 12, 2022 12:33 am

They're all "ee's"
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Re: How to distinguish è é e ê

Postby Cainntear » Thu May 12, 2022 5:14 am

LanguageLearner0007 wrote:Are there any more patterns like this that favour the use of a particular accent?

You have to start with the sound. If you let yourself believe they sound the same and rely on visual patterns, it's never going to get any easier.

Learn to pronounce é as é and è as è, and spelling will become much, much easier.

ê doesn't have its own sound -- ^ is a historical hangover indicating that their used to be an S after the letter -- eg forêt = forest, hôpital = hospital.

Modern reforms have done away with ^ almost entirely, so you're unlikely to see it all that much anyway. It usually gets pronounced the same as è.


Probably the thing that's most confusing is plain old "e", because it's normally a weak sound, but can change in combinations like the infinitive ending -er, as you already know. But don't let that fool you into thinking there's no system.
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