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Use of accents on capital letters is variable. European usage is sometimes to omit accents, though the French Academy considers it incorrect.[1] This is partly due to the keyboard layout used in France. Quebec usage is to put accents on capitals.
Used to make compound nouns to state what something is used for
moulin à poivre ― pepper mill
sac à dos ― backpack
boite à musique ― music box
(before an infinitive)to(used to express something not completed)
l’équipe à battre ― the team to beat
Il n’y a jamais grand-chose à faire par ici. ― There's never much to do around here.
Là où tu ne vois pas grand-chose, je ne trouve qu’une grande abondance de choses qui restent à faire. ― Where you see nothing great, I only see a great abundance of things that need doing.
Il reste deux tâches à finir. ― There are two things left to finish.
Il y a de la bière à boire. ― There's some beer to drink.
Used to describe a part of something, often translated into English as a compoundadjective
un animal à quatre pattes ― a four-legged animal
une femme au visage pâle ― a pale-faced woman
un homme à longue barbe ― a long-bearded man — a man with a long beard
une chemise à manches courtes ― a short-sleeved shirt
une maison aux murs de brique ― a brick-walled house / a house with brick walls
Bien que la faim et le dénûment nous tourmentassent quelquefois, et même à peu près toujours, rien ne nous causait autant de tourment que d’être témoins des cruautés inouïes que mon maître exerçait sur les chrétiens. Chaque jour il en faisait pendre quelqu’un; on empalait celui-là, on coupait les oreilles à celui-ci […].
Even though hunger and destitution tormented us sometimes, and even almost always, nothing caused us as much torment as being witnesses to the unheard-of cruelties that my master exercised on the Christians. Every day, he made someone hang; they impaled that one, they cut the ears off of this one.
(Can we date this quote?), Jacques Bouveresse, "Et Satan conduit le bal..." Kraus, Hitler & le nazisme, which is an introduction to the book La Troisième nuit de Walpurgis, by Karl Kraus, translated by Pierre Deshusses:
On peut remarquer, à ce propos, que ce n’est pas non plus dans des livre à prétention plus ou moins scientifique que Kraus avait l’habitude de chercher les instruments dont il avait besoin pour la déscription et l’expliquation.
It may also be noticed, on this matter, that it is also not on books with more or less scientific pretentions that Kraus used to search for the instruments which he needed for description and explanation.
Usage notes
Expresses a report/ratio of place (to), time (at), means, manner, price. It can indicate possession (of or 's), particularly when used with a disjunctive personal pronoun, e.g. à moi, à eux, à elle.
Introduces several types of grammatical complement: indirect object, attribution, name, adjective.
In French, a good number of intransitive verbs use à to mark an indirect object, e.g. reussir à(“to succeed at”). Sometimes, their English equivalents are transitive verbs taking direct objects, e.g. jouer à (un jeu)(“to play (a game)”), in which case, translations generally do not require any counterpartial element be rendered for à, though some ways of rendering certain verbs will allow for it.
When à is followed by a definite article, the two combine to give the following combined forms:
However, à la and à l' are almost entirely not used if the location referred to is a country, subnational division, or continent, in which case, en is used instead. (The same does not hold, however, for au and aux.) Compare en France and aux États-Unis. The most notable exception is à la Barbade.
Logically following the previously described rule, à combines with the relative pronouns, which themselves contain an element of the definite article, producing these forms:
Vier Briefmarken à 75 Cent, das macht drei Euro, bitte!
Four stamps at 75 cents each, that's three euros, please!
Usage notes
Generally not followed by articles or adjectives, but if necessary it may be construed with nominative, dative, or accusative: à ein or einem or einen Euro.
à in Bárczi, Géza and László Országh. A magyar nyelv értelmező szótára (“The Explanatory Dictionary of the Hungarian Language”, abbr.: ÉrtSz.). Budapest: Akadémiai Kiadó, 1959–1962. Fifth ed., 1992: →ISBN
à in Nóra Ittzés, editor, A magyar nyelv nagyszótára [A Comprehensive Dictionary of the Hungarian Language] (Nszt.), Budapest: Akadémiai Kiadó, 2006–2031 (work in progress; published a–ez as of 2024).
à in Pusztai, Ferenc (ed.). Magyar értelmező kéziszótár (“A Concise Explanatory Dictionary of Hungarian”). Budapest: Akadémiai Kiadó, 2003. 2nd, expanded and revised edition →ISBN. Online searchable version (under development)
accented preposition, the preposition a is accented when it comes before feminine words in prepositional, adverbial and conjunctive phrases; in
Ele escreveu à caneta.
He wrote in pen.
Usage notes
The grave accent is used to differentiate the preposition of a simple article. In "He wrote in pen", the respective particle without the diacritic will make the sentence have another meaning: "He wrote the pen."
Sistlidne Fredag gaf den sydliga vinden, som då började blåsa med laber kultie signalen till skådespelets början; dagen derpå defilerade i prydlig ordning en svärm af seglare omkring 40 à 50 tre- och två-mastare, många i full skrud, med läsegel och skyskrap!
Last Friday, the southern wind, which began to blow gently, gave the signal for the start of the spectacle; the next day, a swarm of sailboats, around 40 to 50 three- and two-masters, paraded in orderly fashion, many in full regalia, with studding sails and skyscrapers!
1963, Margit Abenius, Memoarer från det inre, page 136:
Jag har hela mitt liv, dvs. en 25 à 30 år fantiserat om en ny form, någonting som inte vore roman och inte essä, […]
I have my whole life, ie. a 25 to 30 year fantasized about a new form, something that would not be a novel and not an essay,
Hoàng Văn Ma, Lục Văn Pảo, Hoàng Chí (2006) Từ điển Tày-Nùng-Việt [Tay-Nung-Vietnamese dictionary] (in Vietnamese), Hanoi: Nhà xuất bản Từ điển Bách khoa Hà Nội
Lương Bèn (2011) Từ điển Tày-Việt [Tay-Vietnamese dictionary] (in Vietnamese), Thái Nguyên: Nhà Xuất bản Đại học Thái Nguyên
Lục Văn Pảo, Hoàng Tuấn Nam (2003) Hoàng Triều Ân, editor, Từ điển chữ Nôm Tày [A Dictionary of (chữ) Nôm Tày] (in Vietnamese), Hanoi: Nhà xuất bản Khoa học Xã hội
There's only four members in your group, isn't there?
Usage notes
In contrast to không which is used to make a yes-no question, à is used to seek confirmation, roughly equivalent to Japaneseね(ne) or the English use of tag questions. Compare to nhỉ, which is similar to Japaneseよ(yo) in that it is used to make a light assertion or remark. However, à denotes a speaker's stronger belief that the hearer will agree with him or her than the expression phải không.
The negative reply to this type of question can start with không phải only to questions with a nominal predicate. Otherwise, the negative reply starts with không (or its variants, such as hông) or some other negators such as đâu.