Accent marks are important for three reasons. They deal with: 1) the spelling, 2) the pronunciation, and 3) the meaning of words. Therefore it is of vital importance to learn the accent marks represented in the French language. There are 5 accent marks in the French language: four placed on the following vowels a, e, o, u, ,i and one for the consonant c .
The accent aigu (´ ) is placed on E and lets you know to pronounce an e as the english word a (i.e. date).
Examples : éléphant , Sénégal, étudiant
The accent grave (` ) is placed over an a, e, or u. This particular accent is used to make distinction between words. Observe the following example : ou (or) vs où (where ; also denotes a location or place).
Examples: zèbre, élève ( the grave accent is placed on the second e).
The accent circonflexe (^) is very flexible and can appear relatively on any vowel. It is used to indicate that an s used to follow that vowel and is placed on a, e, e, o, or u.Examples : forêt, pâté, île, hôtel, flûte
The tréma (¨) is used normally when two vowels appear next to each other. The trema on the second vowel indicates to pronounce each vowel separately. Examples : naïve, Saül, Haïti.
The cécédille (¸) is only found under a c, indicating to pronounce the c like an s. When the cécédille is used under a c it alters the hard sound K to a soft C sound.Examples: français, ça, garçon
Language note-Accent marks are not placed on capital letters in French. île (Ile), état (Etats-Unis)
Filed under: French Bible
Hey, there are actually a couple of different ways that I know of. You can change your keyboard settings if you’re going to be writing a lot, use the Alt shortcuts you talked about or also just press Ctrl. apostrophe and then the vowel (only in Word). This blog has a little more info on it http://spanish-translation-blog.spanishtranslation.us/how-to-write-spanish-accent-marks-2009-06-04.html