Spelling essentials

French spelling has a reputation for being hard, because many letters are silent.

Priorities

• accents (é, è, ê, à, ç);
• agreement of nouns, adjectives and verbs;
• the most common homophones: a / à, et / est, son / sont, ou / où;
• -é / -er endings.

Tips

• read a lot: visual memory of words comes from reading;
• learn word families (petit / petite explains the silent t);
• proofread, checking agreements.

All the rules (in French): orthographe.wiki.

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