Writing

Diacritic Marks:

The French writing system uses the Latin alphabet, just like English, but with diacritic marks. The diacritic marks are called: accent aigu (like é), accent grave (like è), accent circonflexe (like ê), trémas (like ë), and cédille (like ç).
The sounds é and è (closed and opened e) are differentiated by means of the accent. Moreover, in French, the accent grave on the letter a and u (à and ù) are used to differentiate homophones (the accent indicates a location word). The accent circonflexe is used to note, often but not always, a long vowel. Generally this accent comes from a disappeared s in the word, s that still stays in the English word (eg: Island=île; hospital=hôpital). The trémas are used to separate the sounds of two vowels. For instance, ai is pronounced like e in get. But if you write it aï, it is pronounced a+i, like the y in my. A cédille, added to a c (before vowels other than e and i), will convert a k sound to an s sound.