French Pronunciation

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French language, French pronunciation, FrenchSounds, learning french, Pronunciation

I’ve posted before about how French speakers can identify a non-native speaker just from the one single word ‘bonjour’. One of my current quests in life is to perfect my pronunciation so that it will take a few more words than just ‘hello’ before someone detects that I’m a rosbif.

The other day I came across the very wonderful Cheryl A. Demharter (aka FrenchSounds) who looks like she may hold the key to the holy grail 🙂 Check out her fantastique YouTube vid.

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Bonjour

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French, French pronunciation

There was a time when I worried that my spoken French was getting so good that people might not realise I wasn’t French. Not that it happens very often, but in certain contexts when I’m talking about things I’m familiar with I can be quite fluent, yeayh 🙂

Then two things happened. First, I was at the airport and I was stopped by the security man who wanted to see inside by bag. I said one word to him, ‘bonjour’. The response? ‘Vous parlez très bien français’. With just that one word he could tell I wasn’t a native French speaker. Some time later I was at a social do and met some new people. Again, the only word out of my mouth was ‘bonjour’. This time the response was ‘ah, ce joli petit accent’.

I’m sure whether I should be reassured or discouraged. On the one hand, I know that so long as I start with ‘bonjour’ nobody is going to wonder if I’m French or not. One the other hand, I’d love a French person to mistake me for a native speaker.

I’ve been told it’s picked up in that bête noire of Anglophones, the r. I’ll keep working on it.

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French pronunciation

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English language, English pronunciation, French language, French pronunciation, Guignol

Guignol (aka Punch)

I’ve never forgotten the day, many years ago, I was on the receiving end of a vehement diatribe from my then French teacher. The reason for such passion? English pronunciation. Her knickers were all twisted up because, she said, in English, you can’t tell how a word is pronounced just by looking at it. This was why, she continued, French was vastly superior to English because in French, you can tell how every word is pronounced just by reading the letters on the page.

I believed her. And I’d always felt a little bit ashamed that in this respect, English should be so difficult for non-native speakers (well readers). That is, until a few days ago, when a friend sent me this:

Nous portions nos portions.
Les poules du couvent couvent.
Mes fils ont cassé mes fils.
Il est de l’est.
Je vis ces vis.
Cet homme est fier ; peut-on s’y fier ?
Nous éditions de belles éditions.
Nous relations ces intéressantes relations.
Je suis content qu’ils nous content cette histoire.
Il convient qu’ils convient leurs amis.
Ils ont un caractère violent et ils violent leurs promesses.
Ces dames se parent de fleurs pour leur parent.
Ils expédient leurs lettres ; c’est un bon expédient.
Nos intentions c’est que nous intentions un procès.
Ils négligent leur devoir ; moi, je suis moins négligent.
Nous objections beaucoup de choses à vos objections.
Ils résident à Paris chez le résident d’une ambassade étrangère.
Ces cuisiniers excellent à composer cet excellent plat.
Les poissons affluent d’un affluent de la rivière.

Now let’s get back to the agreement of direct object pronouns when they precede the verb…