Le mot « école » prend un accent aigu, mais « père » prend un accent grave.

In French, prendre is often used in places where English uses have, get, or take in a more abstract way.

So:

• Le mot école prend un accent aigu
  literally: “The word école takes an acute accent”
• natural English: “The word école has an acute accent” / “is spelled with an acute accent”

This is a normal French way to talk about spelling features.

They are two different accent marks used in French:

• accent aigu = é
• accent grave = è, à, or ù

In this sentence:

• école has é, so it uses un accent aigu
• père has è, so it uses un accent grave

For English speakers, it can help to think of them as two different written symbols that often affect pronunciation.

Very roughly:

• é often sounds like the vowel in English say, but without the glide at the end
• è is usually a more open sound, somewhat like the vowel in English bet

So:

• école begins with é
• père contains è

The exact pronunciation depends on accent and context, but this is a good beginner-level distinction.

Because école is being mentioned as a word, not used with its normal meaning.

• école can mean “school”
• le mot école means “the word école”

French often adds le mot when talking about a word itself, especially in explanations about spelling or grammar. It makes it very clear that you are discussing the form of the word, not its meaning.

Because the sentence is referring to the words themselves.

French often uses:

• « ... » instead of English "..."

So:

• « école »
• « père »

mean the same as English “école” and “père”.

You may also notice spaces inside French guillemets:

• « école » This spacing is standard in French typography.

Because the sentence is identifying what kind of accent each word has, not referring back to one already known accent.

So French says:

• prend un accent aigu
• prend un accent grave

This is like saying:

• “takes an acute accent”
• “takes a grave accent”

If the speaker had already introduced a specific accent and was referring back to it, l’accent might be possible in another context.

Because accent is a masculine noun:

• un accent

Adjectives in French usually agree with the noun they describe. Since accent is masculine singular, the adjective also appears in the masculine singular form:

• un accent aigu
• un accent grave

If the noun were feminine, the adjective form might change, though grave happens to look the same in masculine and feminine.

Not in meaning.

In accent grave, grave means something like “low” or “heavy” in a historical/linguistic sense, not “serious” or “a tomb.”

French grave can mean “serious” in other contexts, but here it is simply the name of the accent mark: è.

So it is best to memorize:

• accent aigu = acute accent
• accent grave = grave accent

as fixed terms.

Because they are being cited as words, not used normally in a sentence.

Compare:

• L’école est grande. = “The school is big.”
  Here école is a regular noun, so it needs an article.
• Le mot école prend un accent aigu. = “The word école takes an acute accent.”
  Here école is just being mentioned as a word.

When you mention a word as an object of discussion, French often leaves it bare, especially after expressions like le mot.

Yes. That is another very common way to express the same idea.

For example:

• École s’écrit avec un accent aigu.
• Le mot école prend un accent aigu.

Both are correct, but they focus slightly differently:

• prend un accent = “takes an accent”
• s’écrit avec = “is written with”

A learner will hear both.

French uses mais exactly like English but to contrast two ideas:

• école takes an acute accent,
• but père takes a grave accent.

So the structure is very straightforward:

• statement 1
• mais
• statement 2

This kind of parallel structure is common in explanations because it makes the contrast easy to see.

They matter. In standard French spelling, accents are part of the word.

For example:

• école must be written with é
• père must be written with è

Leaving accents out is usually considered a spelling mistake, even if people sometimes omit them casually in informal typing. Accents can also distinguish different words or change pronunciation, so they are important to learn early.