Mastering French Accents

To the new student, learning to correctly mark accents in French can seem like a difficult and daunting task. But this task becomes much easier once students realize that the process is logical and based on a few simple rules of phonetics. Teachers may be familiar with the symbols of the International Phonetic Alphabet (as they appear in any good dictionary), but students will not need to learn them for these lessons.

Instruction is divided into three lessons of 10 to 15 minutes. Each lesson includes an explanation and 3 short exercises. These lessons can be used for students of any level of French. They do not need to know the meaning of each word; it is almost better if they don’t, so that they can concentrate on the process.

For your benefit, I have included a pronunciation guide for each exercise, with the International Phonetic Alphabet symbols for each word. These pronunciation guides are for your use, and are not meant to be shared with the students.