Script guide › Latin
How to recognize French
French is one of 35 languages in Grafle's Latin group. Here's what it looks like, where you'll see it on signs, and how to tell it apart from its lookalikes.
Spot it fast
- Watch for the accents é/è/ê, the cedilla ç (ça, français), and apostrophes: l', d', c'est.
- Words like les, des, et, dans give it away fast.
What French looks like
Tous les êtres humains naissent libres et égaux.
Liberté, égalité, fraternité — la devise française.
Ça va? C'est la vie, mon ami!
Latin scripts: The alphabet you're reading now. Each language gives itself away by its own special letters and accent marks.
Where you'll see it on signs
- France
- Canada
- Belgium
- Switzerland
- Democratic Republic of the Congo
- Madagascar
- Cameroon
- Ivory Coast
- Niger
- Burkina Faso
- Mali
- Senegal
- Chad
- Guinea
- Rwanda
- Burundi
- Benin
- Haiti
- Togo
- Central African Republic
- Republic of the Congo
- Gabon
- Djibouti
- Comoros
- Luxembourg
- Vanuatu
- Seychelles
- Mauritius
- French Guiana
- New Caledonia
Easy to confuse with
- Italian — French: accents é/è/ê, the ç, and apostrophes (l', c'est). Italian: doubled consonants and vowel endings.
- Portuguese — Both use ç — but Portuguese adds the nasal ã (não, coração), while French stacks accents like é/ê and elides with apostrophes.