written by
George Julian
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The words café and résumé are originally French, and in English we often write those words without the accents. In French, however, the accent marks are not optional.
French has several different accent marks, also known as “diacritics”. They serve several different purposes in the language. Sometimes they affect pronunciation, sometimes they don't. Sometimes they can completely change the meaning of a word.
Getting your accents right is the difference between being a pêcheur (fisherman) and a pécheur (sinner). Which one would you rather have on your résumé?
So let's look at the different types of French accent and how they're used. We'll cover all the different types of accent, how they're pronounced (if they're pronounced at all), and the effect they have on a word's grammar and/or meaning. We'll also look at plenty of examples of French words with accents which should help make things clear.
French Accents List: The 5 French Accent Marks
French uses five different types of diacritic. In no particular order, they are:
- ç – the cedilla (la cédille)
- é – the acute accent (l'accent aigu)
- â/ê/î/ô/û – the circumflex (l'accent circonflexe)
- à/è/ì/ò/ù – the grave accent (l'accent grave)
- ë/ï/ü – the trema (l'accent tréma)
So how do you read, write, or pronounce these letters? What do the accent marks mean?
French Accent Pronunciation Guide
Let’s take a look at how to pronounce each of the five French accent marks. I’ll also explain the purpose of each of the accents.
1. The Cedilla (La Cédille) in French
The cedilla in French looks like a little squiggle beneath the letter “c”: “ç”. This accent mark only goes with the letter “c” — it's not found under any other letter.
It's a simple symbol to understand: a ç (c with a cedilla) is pronounced like an “s”.
You'll only ever see a “ç” before an “a”, “o”, or “u”. (Remember that “c” before an “e” or “i” is pronounced like an “s” anyway, so adding a cedilla wouldn't change anything.)
Two common words that contain cedillas are garçon (“boy”, or “waiter” in a restaurant) and français (French!). You can also occasionally see it in English in loanwords like façade.
2. The Acute Accent (L'Accent Aigu) in French
The acute accent is only ever found above an “e”, as in “é”. Its role is to change the pronunciation of the vowel.
An unaccented “e” can be pronounced several different ways, but when you see “é”, there's no ambiguity. An é (e with an acute accent) is always pronounced the same way.
So what way is that? Many books and websites will tell you that “é” is pronounced like the English “ay”, as in “say” or “way”.
There's just one problem with this piece of advice: it's wrong. Sure, the “ay” sound is close to the French “é” sound, but it's not quite the same. If you pronounce “é” like an “ay”, it will be a dead giveaway that your native language is English.
To understand how “é” is pronounced, let's examine the English “ay” sound a little closer.
Try saying “say” or “way” very slowly, drawing out the vowel at the end. Notice that as you say “aaaaaay”, your tongue moves.This is because “ay” is secretly not one but two vowels said in quick succession. (Linguists call such double vowels “diphthongs”.)
The French “é” is the first of the two vowel sounds that make up the English “ay” diphthong. To pronounce “é” accurately, position your tongue like you're about to say “ay”, but once you start making noise, don't move your tongue or lips. Keep them steady for the entire duration of the sound.
As native English speakers, we often find it hard to shake the habit of “doubling up” this sound and pronouncing it like an “ay” – but with practice, you should remember.
(If you're familiar with the International Phonetic Alphabet, note that the IPA for the “é” sound is /e/. Also note that the French “é” sound is the same as the Spanish “e” sound, which I explained in detail in point #2 of this article. Even if you don't speak Spanish, you may find that explanation helpful for your French).
3. The Grave Accent (L'Accent Grave) in French
The grave accent can be found above an “a”, an “e”, or a “u” (à/è/ù). It does a few different things.
Firstly, it's used above an “a” or “u” to distinguish words which have the same pronunciation but different meanings:
a vs à:
- a is the third-person singular form of avoir (“to have”)
- à is a preposition that can mean “at”, “to”, or “in”
ça vs çà
- ça is a pronoun meaning “it” or “that”
- çà is an interjection that's hard to translate. It can express worry or surprise (like saying “uh-oh!”) or it can be mere verbal filler, like saying “hey” or “well”.
la vs là
- la is the feminine form of the word “the” – or it other contexts it can mean “her”.
- là means “there” or “that
ou vs où:
- ou means “or”
- où means “where”. Note that this is the only word in the entire French language where you'll find a grave accent above the letter “u”!
You can also find a grave accent in déjà (“already”) and deçà (“closer than”), although “déja” and “deça” without the accent aren't words.
Above an “a” or a “u”, a grave accent doesn't change the pronunciation. Above an “e”, however, it tells you that the vowel is pronounced “eh”, like the “e” in “get” (IPA /ɛ/).
There are many ways to pronounce an unaccented “e” in French. The grave accent makes it clear that you must say /ɛ/, when otherwise the “e” might be a different sound, or silent.
4. The Circumflex (L'Accent Circonflexe) in French
The circumflex, which looks like a little pointy hat, can be found above all five vowels in French: â, ê, î, ô, or û. Its usage is somewhat complicated.
First, it tells you how to pronounce “a”, “e”, and “o”:
- “â” is pronounced roughly like an English “ah” as in an American “hot” or British “bath”.
- “ê” is pronounced like an English “eh” as in “get” – the same as if it was “è” with a grave accent.
- “ô” is pronounced roughly like an English “oh” as in “boat” or “close”. It's the same sound found in the French word au.
When placed over an “i” or “u”, a circumflex doesn't change the pronunciation, except in the combination “eû”. Jeûne (“fast” as in a dietary fast) is pronounced differently from jeune (“young”).
So why bother writing a circumflex when it doesn't affect pronunciation? The answer takes us back hundreds of years.
Take the word forêt, which means “forest”. As you might guess, the English and French words share a common root. As time went on, French people stopped pronouncing the “s”, but they continued to write it – it was a silent letter, of which English has many.
Eventually, it was decided to change the spelling of the word to remove the superfluous “s”. But for whatever reason, the French intelligentsia didn't want to erase all trace that this “s” had ever existed – so it was decided to add a circumflex to the “e” in its place. The circumflex is an etymological tombstone – it tells you “hey, there used to be an extra letter here!”
Compare these French words to their English cognates:
- ancêtre – “ancestor”
- août – “August”
- côte – “coast”
- forêt – “forest”
- hôtel – “hostel”
- hôpital – “hospital”
- pâté – “paste”
- rôtir – “to roast”
Most commonly, a circumflex denotes a missing “s”, but it's sometimes used for other letters. For example, âge (age) and bâiller (to yawn) were once spelt aage and baailler.
The circumflex is also handy for distinguishing certain pairs of identically-pronounced words:
sur vs. sûr:
– sur is a preposition meaning “on”, or an adjective meaning “sour”.
– sûr means “sure” or “certain”. Note that the circumflex is still present in inflected forms like the feminine sûre, or in derived words like sûreté (security).
du vs. dû:
– dumeans “of the” – it's a contraction of de(of) and le(masculine form of “the”).
– dûis the past participle of devoir – “to have to”. Unlike sûr, the circumflex is notkept in the inflected forms: so it's dû in the masculine singular but due, dus,and duesin the other three forms.
mur vs. mûr:
– un muris “a wall”.
– mûrmeans “ripe” or “mature”, as well as being a slang term for “drunk”. The circumflex ispreserved in the inflected forms (mûre, mûrs, mûres), and in related words like mûrir(to ripen.)
5. The Trema (L'Accent Tréma) in French
Finally, we have the trema: two little dots above a letter. It can be found above an “e”, “i”, or “u”: ë, ï, ü.
The trema is also sometimes called a “diaeresis” or “umlaut”, although technically it's not an umlaut. The umlaut and diaeresis are unrelated things that evolved in different places and only look the same by coincidence – but that doesn’t matter here.
You may recognise the trema from the names Zoë and Chloë. Here, the trema tells you that the “o” and “e” are pronounced separately – so they rhyme with “snowy”, not “toe”.
(If only David Jones had taken the stage name “Boë” instead of “Bowie”, all the confusion about its pronunciation could have been avoided).
Some English style guides suggest you use the trema (also known as a “diaeresis”, pronounced “die-heiresses”) for a host of other words, like reëlect or coöperate. However, in practice almost no-one does this.
In French, the trema works the same way, and it's much more common than in English. It's written over the second of two vowels to tell you that they must be pronounced separately, whereas without the accent they might combine into a completely different sound:
- coïncidence (coincidence)
- Jamaïque (Jamaica)
- Noël (Christmas)
This is by far the most common use of the trema.
There a confusing exception when you consider adjectives which end in a “gu” – like our friend aigu (acute), as in l'accent aigu.
Why we want to use aigu with a feminine noun, like douleur (pain)? Normally we'd add a silent “e”. The problem is that “gue” in French is pronounced as “g”, with a silent “e” and “u” (You can see the same rule in English words like “fugue” or “vague”).
To get around this problem, French uses a trema: the feminine form of aigu is aigüe, as in douleur aigüe. Since the French Spelling Reform of 1990, the trema is officially supposed to go on the “u”, although you'll often still see people writing aiguë.
How to Type French Accents
French computers generally use the AZERTY keyboard layout, which has some major differences from our familiar QWERTY – including some special keys for typing accents.
Learn to type in a new layout if you’re feeling hardcore. For everyone else, there are fairly convenient ways to type accents in French (or any other language) on QWERTY. Here's how you can do it on Windows or a Mac:
How to Type French Accents On a PC
The following shortcuts should work in newer versions of Windows:
- To type “ç” or “Ç”, press Ctrl + ,, then “c” or “C”.
- To type “é” or “E”, press Ctrl + ‘, then “e” or “E”.
- To type a vowel with a circumflex press Ctrl + Shift + ^, then the vowel.
- To type a vowel with a grave accent press Ctrl + `, then the vowel.
- To type a vowel with a trema press Ctrl + `, then the vowel.
If that doesn't work, you can try inputting the character code directly.
Each accented character can be entered with a four-digit code. Simply press the “alt” key, then enter the French accent codes below. (Note: you'll need to enter them with the number pad on the right-hand side of your keyboard, not the number keys above the letters.)
| Character | Code Lowercase | Code Uppercase |
|---|---|---|
| ç | Alt + 0199 | Alt + 0231 |
| é | Alt + 0233 | Alt + 0201 |
| â | Alt + 0226 | Alt + 0194 |
| ê | Alt + 0234 | Alt + 0202 |
| î | Alt + 0238 | Alt + 0206 |
| ô | Alt + 0244 | Alt + 0212 |
| û | Alt + 0251 | Alt + 0219 |
| à | Alt + 0224 | Alt + 0192 |
| è | Alt + 0232 | Alt + 0200 |
| ì | Alt + 0236 | Alt + 0204 |
| ò | Alt + 0242 | Alt + 0210 |
| ù | Alt + 0249 | Alt + 0217 |
| ë | Alt + 0235 | Alt + 0203 |
| ï | Alt + 0239 | Alt + 0207 |
| ü | Alt + 0252 | Alt + 0220 |
How to Type French Accents On a Mac
Generally, you can type “special characters” on a Mac by using the Option/Alt key. That's the one labelled “⌥”, between “ctrl” and “cmd”. Here's what you need to know for French:
| Character | Keys |
|---|---|
| cedilla | Alt + c |
| acute accent | Alt + e |
| circumflex | Alt + n |
| grave accent | Alt + ` |
| trema | Alt + u |
To add a letter with a diacritic, press the appropriate key combination, then press the key for the letter you want the diacritic to belong to. For example, to type “ì”, press “alt” + “`” together, then release them and press “i”.
The exception is the cedilla – pressing “alt” + “c” inputs a “ç” directly, without the need to press “c” again afterwards.
Depending on your keyboard and system settings, you may also be able to type special characters by holding down a regular letter key. For example, when I hold down “e” on my Mac for a second or so:
Now to get the accented “é”, I just press “2”.
French Accent Marks — Have Your Say
That covers it! As you can see, the accent rules are a bit complicated, but they're not impossible. Remember that they don't always affect pronunciation: so if your focus is speaking, not every accent rule needs to be studied in great detail just yet.
George Julian
Content Writer, Fluent in 3 Months
George is a polyglot, linguistics nerd and travel enthusiast from the U.K. He speaks four languages and has dabbled in another five, and has been to more than forty countries. He currently lives in London.
Speaks: English, French, Spanish, German, Vietnamese, Portuguese
View all posts by George Julian
FAQs
How do you type French accents on a Mac? ›
- In an app on your Mac, press and hold a letter key on the keyboard—for example, a—to display the accent menu. The menu isn't shown if a key doesn't have any possible accent marks.
- Select a character in the menu—for example, á.
The 5 accents in French writing are:
l'accent grave (grave accent) – à, è, ù la cédille (cedilla) – ç l'accent circonflexe (circumflex) – â, ê, î, ô, û l'accent tréma (trema) – ë, ï, ü
To add accent marks to letters in foreign words, Microsoft Word users can utilize the following keyboard shortcuts to add the accent marks. For example, to get the character ñ, press the Ctrl and Shift Keys while pressing the ~ key (tilde key). Then, release all three keys and quickly press the n key.
What is the French keyboard layout? ›A keyboard layout used in France and neighboring countries. A, Z, E, R, T and Y are the letters on the top left, alphabetic row. AZERTY is similar to the QWERTY layout, except that Q and A are swapped, Z and W are swapped and M is in the middle row instead of the bottom one.
What is the keyboard code for accents? ›...
ALT key accents in UPPER CASE.
| Alt Codes | Symbol | Description |
|---|---|---|
| Alt 0201 | É | E acute |
| Alt 0202 | Ê | E circumflex |
| Alt 0203 | Ë | E umlaut |
| Alt 0204 | Ì | I grave |
It's an adjective, French, which means 'esteemed' or 'beloved'. If following French language rules, then 'e with accent' for a boy and 'ee with accent on the first e' for a girl.
What is é called in French? ›The Trema (L'Accent Tréma) in French
It can be found above an “e”, “i”, or “u”: ë, ï, ü. The trema is also sometimes called a “diaeresis” or “umlaut”, although technically it's not an umlaut.
Accent tréma, or the dieresis looks like two little dots above the letter and is used with e, i, and u (ë/ï/ü). And its only function is to indicate that the letter in the French word should be pronounced distinctly from the vowel that precedes it - for example, Noël (Christmas).
What is the easiest French accent? ›Compared with Parisians, Southern French people speak French at a slower rate, which can make it seem easy to understand.
What are the 3 consonants you should pronounce at the end of a word in French? ›The letters B, C, F, K, L, Q, and R are usually pronounced at the end of a word. Tip: Since B, K, and Q are rare as final consonants, some people find it helpful to use the word CaReFuL to remember the most common of the usually pronounced final consonants.
What is the most common French accent? ›
L'accent Aigu
The l'accent aigu is the most common French accent mark. And, it only appears over the letter “e”. The purpose of this accent is to change the pronunciation. While “e” without an accent can be pronounced in several ways, with the acute accent it's pronounced “eh”.
#1 Parisian French
Of the accents of France, the Paris accent is perhaps the hardest to nail down. And that's because Parisian French is considered “standard French” – or French without an accent.
Spontaneous speech could involve talking to yourself out loud in the accent for an entire day, or even chatting with friends and family as you test out the accent. There is no better way to learn an accent authentically than to speak using that accent as often as you can.
Why is the French accent so hard? ›The French language tends to be difficult to pronounce at first because there are simply sounds that native English speakers aren't used to making. To begin with, French is more evenly stressed. This means that while some parts of a word are stressed, it's not as distinct as in English.
Do accent marks matter? ›First, accent marks show you where to put stress on a word that breaks the rules of accent marks. For example, most words have the stress on the second to last syllable. Words that have their stress on a different syllable, like miércoles, need an accent mark to show you where to pronounce it.
What is an example of an accent mark? ›Words adopted from foreign languages sometimes carry their accent marks with them, as in “fiancé, ” “protégé,” and “cliché.” As words become more at home in English, they tend to shed the marks: “Café” is often spelled “cafe.” Unfortunately, “résumé” seems to be losing its marks one at a time (see under “vita/vitae”).
Can anyone develop an accent? ›The capacity for accent change among adults has been well-documented by linguistic researchers, over both the short-term (temporarily in the context of a single conversation) and the long-term (slowly evolving based on exposure to other accents over a period of years).
How to fake a convincing French accent? ›Another quick and easy way to fake a French accent is to drop the “G” at the end of “-ing” words. For example, “going” becomes “goin',” “working” becomes “workin',” and so forth.
Do French like English accents? ›FRENCH people consider the English accent to be the most attractive - while the rest of the world considers the French language to be the most seductive, a new study has found.
Are French accents attractive? ›A 2017 study of 15,000 people around the world found that French is considered the most sexy accent followed by Italian. Other studies have found that Australian and Scottish accents are considered the sexiest. Meanwhile, French people generally report that British and Spanish people sound sexiest when speaking French.
Why do France use AZERTY? ›
The AZERTY layout appeared in France in the last decade of the 19th century as a variation on American QWERTY typewriters. Its exact origin is unknown.
Which is better AZERTY or QWERTY? ›If you write a lot of English texts for your studies or work, a QWERTY keyboard is more practical as well. That's because the QWERTY keyboard is specifically designed for the English language.
What countries use AZERTY? ›AZERTY is a keyboard layout. It is very similar to the QWERTY keyboard layout. It is mainly used in France and Belgium.
What country uses Ä? ›The letter Ä occurs as an independent letter in the Finnish, Swedish, Skolt Sami, Karelian, Estonian, Luxembourgish, North Frisian, Saterlandic, Emiliano-Romagnolo, Rotuman, Slovak, Tatar, Kazakh, Gagauz, German, and Turkmen alphabets, where it represents a vowel sound.
How do you use accent codes? ›While pressing down the ALT key, type the four-digit code on the numeric key pad at the right edge of the keyboard. The codes are "case sensitive." For instance, the code for lower-case á is ALT+0225, but capital Á is ALT+0193.
How do you type accents without Alt codes? ›You can also type these by holding the apostrophe or tilde keys as you would the Shift key and typing the letter that you want to add an accent to.
Is Esme male or female? ›| Gender | male or female |
| Origin | |
|---|---|
| Word/name | Old French esmé (feminine esmée), "esteemed", past participle of esmer, "to esteem" |
| Meaning | 1. Old French: "beloved", "esteemed" 2. Short for Esméralda |
| Other names | |
From the Old French esme, meaning "loved" or "esteemed". Esme and its variations are popular in classic literature.
What is the male version of Esme? ›The name Esme is both a boy's name and a girl's name meaning "loved, admired". Originally a male name in this single-E spelling, Esme or Esmé was borne by the first Duke of Lennox in Scotland in the 16th century, as well as by several of his male descendants. It became predominantly female by the 20th century.
How is â pronounced? ›Phonetically, ⟨â⟩ is traditionally pronounced as /ɑ/, but is nowadays rarely distinguished from /a/ in many dialects such as in Parisian French.
What are 10 French words? ›
- Bonjour = Hello, Good morning.
- Au revoir = Goodbye.
- Oui = Yes.
- Non = No.
- Merci = Thank you.
- Merci beaucoup = Thank you very much.
- Fille = Girl.
- Garçon = Boy.
Ï, lowercase ï, is a symbol used in various languages written with the Latin alphabet; it can be read as the letter I with diaeresis, I-umlaut or I-trema.
How is A pronounced in French? ›It is usually pronounced more or less like the 'A' in "father," but with the lips wider in French than in English: listen. An 'A' with the accent grave à is pronounced the same way.
What is the letter Ö called? ›The letter o with umlaut (ö) appears in the German alphabet. It represents the umlauted form of o, resulting in [œ] or [ø]. The letter is often collated together with o in the German alphabet, but there are exceptions which collate it like oe or OE.
Which accent is hardest to imitate? ›The British Accent
The Great British accent proved to be the most difficult of all the accents to imitate – along with the regional Yorkshire and Cockney pronunciations, in particular.
Is German the hardest language to learn? Maybe not, but it is certainly one of the hardest European languages. And in particular, one of the hardest languages to learn for French speakers (Spanish and Portuguese speakers, too), since it is in a different language family.
What is the least attractive English accent? ›The Birmingham accent is considered the least attractive accent in the British Isles – and Southern Irish the most appealing. A quick analysis of English dialects shows that there are roughly as many in the British Isles as there are in the whole of North America – including Canada, Bermuda and Native American dialects ...
What letters French don't pronounce? ›B, k or q aren't common ending in French, and you can remember the most recurrent ones by using the word CaReFuL. However, there are some exceptions to this rule so don't forget to make a mental note if you encounter them. Other letters are rarely pronounced, such as d, g, m, p, s, t, x and z.
What are the 4 accents used with French vowels? ›- L'accent aigu (é)
- L'accent grave (à, è, ù)
- L'accent circonflexe or "chapeau" (â, ê, î, ô, û)
- La cédille (ç)
- Le tréma (ë, ï, ü)
In the standard Zhuang language, written in the Latin script, the last letter of every syllable is typically silent due to it representing the tone of the syllable.
Is it better to learn Spanish or French first? ›
If you want to learn both French and Spanish, you might want to consider starting French first. While French will likely be more intimidating to speak initially, its shared vocabulary with English will help lessen the difficulty of memorization.
Which is harder French or English? ›Is English Harder than French To Learn? French is not as hard to learn as it is considered by most of the people, especially when compared to English. In fact, it is a language that's much easier to achieve fluency in than you'd have ever expected. English is inconsistent when it comes to pronunciation.
Which French dialect should I learn? ›Parisian French or Metropolitan French is the standard, and if you learn this form of the language you should be able to use it successfully in other regions of France, as well as in French-speaking countries in other parts of the world.
How do I type é on my keyboard Windows? ›é: Press Ctrl and type "'" (apostrophe). Release both keys and type "e". à-è-ù: Press Ctrl and type "`" key (left-hand side, top of the keyboard). Release both keys and type "e", "a", or "u".
How do you type à on a laptop? ›...
Keyboard shortcuts for international characters.
| To insert this | Press |
|---|---|
| â, ê, î, ô, û Â, Ê, Î, Ô, Û | CTRL+SHIFT+^ (CARET), the letter |
| ã, ñ, õ Ã, Ñ, Õ | CTRL+SHIFT+~ (TILDE), the letter |
Alt + 0201 to enter upper case E with an acute accent (É) Alt + 0233 to enter lower case e with an acute accent (é) Alt + 0200 to enter upper case E with a grave accent (È) Alt + 0232 to enter lower case e with a grave accent (è)
How do you type Ø on an English keyboard? ›Ø = Hold down the Control and Shift keys and type a / (slash), release the keys, hold down the Shift key and type an O.
How do I type æ in Windows 10? ›First, hold down the Ctrl and Shift keys on the left side of the keyboard and press U. Then type the code for the character and hit Enter. For example, using the left side press Ctrl-Shift-U then c6 then Enter will produce Æ.
What is the E with 2 dots? ›The diaeresis (the two dots) signifies that the underlying “e” is pronounced as /ɛ/ (as “e” in “bet”, i.e. the open e), no matter what comes around it, and is used in groups of vowels that would otherwise be pronounced differently.
What is the difference between French and English keyboard? ›The main difference between these three keyboards is the position of the Q, W, Z and A keys. The QWERTY keyboard is prevalent in the Americas and in several regions of Europe. The QWERTZ keyboard, also called Swiss keyboard, is used in German-speaking countries, while in France and Belgium, AZERTY is the norm.
How to download French keyboard? ›
Go to “Settings” > “Change PC Settings” > “Time & Language” > “Region & Language.” Click on “Add a Language” and select “French.” This will add it to your list of languages. It will appear as French with the note “language pack available.”
How to do a backwards slash? ›Creating the \ symbol on a U.S. keyboard
It is located above the Enter key (Return key) and below the Backspace key. Pressing \ creates a backslash. Doing the Alt code Alt +92 can also create a backslash.
Microsoft Word
If you want to enter a lowercase ñ, type n0303 and then press Alt + x. Press Ctrl + Shift + Tilde (~) and then type N for an uppercase Ñ. To create a lowercase ñ, press Ctrl + Shift + Tilde (~) and then type n.
If you don't have a Num Lock key, press Fn and F11 keys on your keyboard at the same time to activate the numeric keypad. Afterward, hold down the ALT key and press 164 (alternative: ALT + 0241) and it will produce a small letter “ñ”.
How do you type an A? ›...
Keyboard shortcuts to add language accent marks in Word and Outlook.
| To insert this | Press |
|---|---|
| â, ê, î, ô, û Â, Ê, Î, Ô, Û | CTRL+SHIFT+^ (CARET), the letter |
| ã, ñ, õ Ã, Ñ, Õ | CTRL+SHIFT+~ (TILDE), the letter |
| ä, ë, ï, ö, ü, ÿ, Ä, Ë, Ï, Ö, Ü, Ÿ | CTRL+SHIFT+: (COLON), the letter |
| å, Å | CTRL+SHIFT+@, a or A |
The lowercase ñ can be made in the Microsoft Windows operating system by typing Alt + 164 or Alt + 0241 on the numeric keypad (with Num Lock turned on); the uppercase Ñ can be made with Alt + 165 or Alt + 0209 . Character Map in Windows identifies the letter as "Latin Small/Capital Letter N With Tilde".
What is the E with an upside down V over it? ›Ê, ê (e-circumflex) is a letter of the Latin alphabet, found in Afrikaans, French, Friulian, Kurdish, Norwegian (Nynorsk), Portuguese, Vietnamese, and Welsh. It is used to transliterate Chinese, Persian, and Ukrainian.
What is an é called? ›The acute is used on é. It is known as accent aigu, in contrast to the accent grave which is the accent sloped the other way. It distinguishes é [e] from è [ɛ], ê [ɛ], and e [ə]. Unlike in other Romance languages, the accent marks do not imply stress in French.