How to master French accents

As with Spanish, when writing in French we must pay close attention to the accentuation of the syllables.
The difficult thing is that, in our spelling rules, we only have one accent: the acute accent (“´”). However, in French the variety is much greater, since we must take into account both the acute accent («´»), the grave («` »), the circumflex (« ^ ») and the umlaut (« ¨ » ).
How about? A challenge!
If you have a visual memory, we recommend that you use colored markers.
And is that one of the biggest challenges that we must face when learning the language of Molière is mastering the French accents , those complicated accents.
To learn French, you must understand the different accents in the language and how they are used.
Diacritical accents have both a phonetic, semantic and etymological meaning in the French language. That is, they are not used like accents in Spanish, which serve to mark the stressed syllable or distinguish words that are written in the same way.

Characteristics and meaning of French accents: How to master French accents

Grave accent: «à», «è», «ù». While over the “e” this accent simply indicates a change in the / ε / sound; on the other two vowels it serves as a diacritical tilde, that is, to distinguish «à» («towards») from «a» («has»), and «ou» («or») from «où» («where» Or where”).
Acute accent: «é». It is only used on this vowel to indicate the sound it represents: / e / (in front of / ε / of the grave accent). It usually indicates that historically there was an “s” next to this vowel, hence we find it in words like “écouter” (Do you notice the difference between “écouter” and “e s cuchar”?).
Circumflex accent: «â», «ê», «î», «ô», «û». Like the acute accent, the circumflex is usually used to indicate the historical omission of a letter (an s , generally): château, fête, âge, dîner … It is also used as a diacritical tilde to indicate the difference between words that are pronounced in the same way: «du» («of») and «dû» («due», from the verb «duty»).
Diéresis (also known as “tréma”): “ë”, “ï”, “ü”, “ÿ”. This sign is used primarily to indicate that a set of vowels that, as a general rule, would form a diphthong, on this occasion does not. If you think about it, it kind of resembles our use of the umlaut in Spanish. We can find the umlaut in words like: naïf / naïve, Noël, maïs …
Cedilla : «ç». It is used to represent the sound / s / where / k / would be pronounced if it were not indicated; that is, mainly followed by “a”, “o”, “u”. This is the case of words like: “reçu”, “ça”, “garçon”, “français”, “façon”, etc.
If you want to send an email to a French or a Francophone who resides in any country, you should take good care of your accents since, if you do not do so, it will appear that you are making serious spelling mistakes that can even lead to misunderstandings.
To better memorize French accents and use this language in your day-to-day life, we recommend that you immerse yourself as much as possible in French-speaking culture: literature, music, radio and television programs, etc. Make French present in your life and you will be able to assimilate and master it much more easily