Provençe - French Mistake

Mistakes will always be made in French, and now you can learn from them.

Wrong: Provençe

Right: Provence

Explanation: The cedilla ç changes a hard c sound to a soft c sound. In the word Provence, the c is followed by e, which means it's already soft, so the cedilla is unnecessary. This mistake occurs because people see Provençal and think "ok, there's a ç in Provençal, so there should be one in Provence too." Wrong! The cedilla never goes in front of e or i - no exceptions. (Honest!)

Other cedilla mistakes:

• "içi" is correctly spelled ici
• "merçi" should be spelled merci
• "comme çi comme ça" has one cedilla too many: comme ci comme ça

Remember: Leaving out a required accent is a mistake, but adding an unnecessary one is just as bad.

Related lessons: the letter C | French accents | accent homographs