Mistakes will always be made in French, and now you can learn from them.
Wrong: un chapître
Right: un chapitre
Explanation: The French word chapitre (chapter) has no accent, but for some reason I always want to spell it "chapître" - and I'm not alone. I see it misspelled all the time, and I can't figure out why. The French circumflex ^ often indicates that the accented letter used to be followed by s, as in forêt (forest) and hôpital (hospital).
I can't imagine that chapitre was ever spelled "chapistre," so that explanation is out. The other purpose of the circumflex is to distinguish between homographs, but that's obviously not a problem either, so I'm stumped. If you have any ideas, please share them on my French blog - just hit "comments" at the bottom of the post.
Related lessons:French accents | Accent homographs
Wrong: un chapître
Right: un chapitre
Explanation: The French word chapitre (chapter) has no accent, but for some reason I always want to spell it "chapître" - and I'm not alone. I see it misspelled all the time, and I can't figure out why. The French circumflex ^ often indicates that the accented letter used to be followed by s, as in forêt (forest) and hôpital (hospital).
I can't imagine that chapitre was ever spelled "chapistre," so that explanation is out. The other purpose of the circumflex is to distinguish between homographs, but that's obviously not a problem either, so I'm stumped. If you have any ideas, please share them on my French blog - just hit "comments" at the bottom of the post.
Related lessons:French accents | Accent homographs