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Comment by arisAlexis | Hacker News Reader

I'm OP. I am not communicating mostly in writing. I think that most people memorize the sound of the word. Ecole is the first word I learned in French and to this day I forget is it's a grave or aigu. What I realized with your comment and thank you is that I didn't mean intonation! I got confused because and I meant the type of accents and I meant spelling. Thank you

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> Ecole is the first word I learned in French and to this day I forget is it's a grave or aigu.

What I've noticed with most French words is that initial-è seems to be phonotactically disfavored if not outright forbidden. A quick scan of my dictionary suggests the only word with initial-è is ès which is archaic. In general, I associate è with a sort of final position, using je préfère as the mnemonic (since it has both the accents in that conjugation).

Words that start with a "è" sound typically have an "H" as a first letter.

Really? Try to pronounce "ecole" (I'm omitting the accent on purpose). Does it sound like the end of "café" or the first sound in "mère"? It's impossible to confuse the two. I'm really curious as to how you manage not to distinguish them while claiming to speak the language. That's what I meant when I said I thought you are mostly communicating in writing - if you actually speak the word, you'll never be confused about it...

I'm not only claiming to speak the language, I not only have spoken it with various friends but also I have a formal B1 certificate from institute francais. Which proves that pronouncing the e of mere and the first e of ecole exactly the same is not very important. Also for reference I used to hang out with an examiner from the same institute and told me they only care about your accents unless it's something monstrous only at C1 level. You can pass the exam (official from the state) without writing any accents even in written composition.

This is like the c++ pointers guy complaining "how can this guy write so ugly PHP". I'm the PHP guy and I'm a fan of the way @levelsio is doing things in a simple and effective way that makes others annoyed. But in reality his projects work. And I chat with french friends :)

You do realize that B1 is lower intermediate level...? This isn't exactly the flex you think it is.

Besides, learning a language isn't about exams or certifications. It seemed to me that we have very different ideas of what learning to speak a language means, and your answers confirm it. That's fine, but I'm not sure what there is left to discuss, then.

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