French: des with grave accent vs not

Self-tutoring about French: the tutor looks at des vs dès.

The following is by my understanding.

In French, a normal e, when pronounced, might sound like an English “long a” as in “hay.” Therefore, the French des might sound like the English “day.” By comparison, the letter e grave, è, has a slimmer sound, from an Anglo’s point of view: one might describe it as the “e” in the English word “left.” In such a case, dès might sound like the English “deft” without the -ft. Note that, in neither des nor dès, is the terminal -s pronounced. A lot of terminal letters in French are silent, even consonants.

Yet, the French des and dès are both such short words, it might be hard to hear a difference between them. Perhaps more importantly, this is a case wherein the accent changes the meaning of the word. Both des and dès are prepositions. Des is plural and means “some”, “from”, or “of.” Dès is more temporal, so it tends to suggest “since” or “from a time and place.” Importantly, dès is not plural, but des is. Des oranges means some oranges, for instance; des Maritimes means of the Maritimes or from the Maritimes. Dès hier, however, means since yesterday, from yesterday, or as early as yesterday.

This may be a bit imprecise, but it’s my working knowledge of the difference between des and dès.

Source:

Dubois, M-M, Keen, D.J., Shuey, B., Corbeil, J-C, Crocker, L.G. (1983). Larousse’s French-English Dictionary. Pocket Books New York.