Lesson - French Sounds (Pronunciation) - #2
 

Please see the following for introduction and citation information:
http://moi-alizee.us/forums/showthread.php?t=1101


To review the point that final consonants in French are silent, pronounce:
Margot............... clos................... estomac
Bardot................ Cloud................. Yves
Corot................. Tarbes............... chassis
In pronouncing the third column did you say
es-tom-mah........ eve................... shah-see?

Did you remember to make each syllable equally strong?
You probably have made the ar combination sound more English than French. Put the sound more in the front of your mouth; thin your lips a bit; make the sound fairly crisp. Now try again:
Margot................ Bardot................ Tarbes
Do you hear the difference?

We have now called attention to the following points:
i........................ has the sound of............... eeeh
(the vowel sound of beet)
ou..................... has the sound of................ oooh
(the vowel sound of boot)
a....................... has the sound of................ ah
(the vowel sound bah)
os/ot/od............. at the end of a word have the sound of.......... oh
(the vowel sound of oak)

Practice pronouncing:
Mimi................... clou................... ma..................... nos
Fifi..................... cou................... chat................... fagot
midi.................... coucou............... bas.................... vos
si....................... bout.................. plat.................... bigot
dit..................... sous................... tas..................... bachot
tapis................... fou.................... glas.................... pot

au and eau
Both au and eau have the sound of oh:
Pau.................... beau.................. aussi
faut................... seau................... autel
maux.................. Meaux................ drapeau
chaud................ chapeau.............. bateaux

the sound of oi
The combination oi is often found in French.
oi...................... has the sound of................. wah
(the vowel sound of watt)

Pronounce:
moi.................... choix.................. bois
loi...................... voix................... froid
lois..................... croix.................. chamois
toit.................... fois.................... trois

final ez and er
Final ez and er have the sound of ay as in English day.
BUT THERE IS A DIFFERENCE. In English we slide from ay to ay-eee. As a matter of fact we do that sliding with words like die also; we say dy-eee. It is important to remember that the French do not slide the vowel. They say ay without changing the position of the lips, tongue, or teeth during the sound.

Pronounce:
coupez............... coucher.............. sauter
chez................... passer............... placez

One more point: the French word for “and” is et, pronounced (always and in every case) ay as explained above.
Say: Margot et Charles

I never even noticed I was doing this!

Thanks for the lessons.

The "sliding" process that is discribed here is what linguists call a diphthong, or coarticulation of two or more vowel sounds. Many "long vowels" in English end up as diphthongs even if we don't realize it. Some end up being written with two vowels; but others that we think are "pure vowels" really aren't in many English dialects:
long i as in hight
long a as in late
oi as in boil
ow as in cow
and sometimes even long o as in hope which ever so slightly "slides" from oh to oooh. If you can feel your lips tightening while you say a long o, then you know you are doing it.

Other langauges (including French) tend to use more of what are called "pure vowels," vowels which do not change in articularion as you say them. This is particularly true in what English speakers think of a long a. I kow this post was mostly about English, but recognizing what you do instinctively in you native language helps you consciously not do those things when speaking another language. Learning proper French pronunciation also includes English accent reduction.

Edit: The so-called "semi-vowels," w and y, can also be seen as a form of diphthongization that has been standardized where w represents a diphthong starting on oooh and ending on the vowel that is written after it and y represents a diphthong that starts on eeeh and ends on the vowel written after it.

Hahaha. Same! Thanks for the Lesson CFHollister!

and of course remember that the following pronounciations are all exactly the same:

-aie -aient -ait -ai -et -est -es -ais -ez -er -é -ée

Thank you gentlemen for your ongoing efforts and work!
I am most grateful! Merci!

thank you very much, cfhollister:) your efforts are well appreciated

well one thing is to pronounce it and the other is to talk it

so chat was prononced in French 'shat'?
thanks for the lesson CFH!
i was hard to understand some of these lessom but im not giving up!
thanks!

no marik its pronounced sha :)

Not quite. It is important to mention (is it that important?) that ai is pronounced differently from ais, ait, and aient. the first one is pronounced ay, but the second are more like eh. The difference is important for distinguishing between the past imperfect, past perfect, future "simple", and conditional tenses.

pk garcon! thanks!:)

hey espire i never heard a difference :confused: maybe its my accent :p i don't think i ever heard people pronounce this difference anyway.

Garçon, I guess that's just a subtle difference not used in Quebecois French. How else would we know the difference between "Je marcherai" and "Je marcherais"? There's a big difference between them :p

the old men always told me it was by context :D i remember asking this question, and they told me "well you can't tell just by pronounciation" xD so, which is it :)

In the official language, there is definitely a difference. "Ai" is pronounced like "no way!", while "ais/ait/aient" are pronounced like "better."

I've read what espire is talking about in my French book, though I hate it. It just further complicates a language which is already complicated enough.

Though when I listen to the kids talking in the videos that we are shown in class, I don't hear them distinguishing between the two sounds.

Toc De Mac, just wait till L'accord du participe passé. It's probably one of the most annoying parts of French, and it's only used in writing. When speaking, the difference is not noticed.

Heh, I believe I've already done that. ;)

Do you mean something like...

La robe que tu as lavée hier est très jolie.

?

Yeah... So you're okay.

espire i talked to a Frenchman and he said theres no difference :)

In common spoken French, I wouldn't doubt it, but I know that for a fact, there should be a difference. At least there used to be one, long ago. In Ontario, we're still being taught archaic French, I guess :p

well, I learned French in Ontario too :p i have never heard of what you said.

maybe you can give me the textbook name where you got this, and a recording of where you can hear this difference? Otherwise please don't be teaching ye olde French on these forums :D:p

You're of Ontarian descent too? Are you in Quebec now, or did you just take a ton of French in University?

Anyway, if I remember then I'll get back to you on the pronunciation thing. I'm sure that that's how it should be...

This sort of question often has no right answer. If you ask a native English speaker if "cot" and "caught" are pronounced the same, a Midwesterner and a New Yorker will give you different answers; similarly with "aunt" and "ant".
A general overview is available on Wikipedia:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/French%5Fpronunciation

Good point. there are certain vowel sounds in english that are used only certain directs. If i could type in IPA (International Phonetic Alphabet) I might be able to better illustrate; but fsquared's examples are valid, if you are familiar with the differences in dialect.

PS: I'm happy to see that my pronunciation lessons are still able to generate some conversation.

If you hunt through the character map, you can actually find a lot of the IPA symbols there. I flabbergasted my acting coach once by turning in a paper where all the IPA pronunciations were properly typed out, with nothing hand added :-P The forums don't, however, have the cursive font installed that makes most of them possible :-(

These sorts of things like "there should be a difference" or "there used to be a difference" can be very influential in prescriptive specifications of languages (as opposed to descriptions of how people actually talk). A very interesting example of this arose in the first attempt at standardizing modern spoken Chinese (before Putonghua). There was this so-called fifth tone that had existed historically but was no longer actually used, but apparently for historical fidelity, the standardizers decided that it just had to be put in. Thus, they standardized a language with a set of records recorded by the linguist Yuen Ren Chao, but since it didn't correspond to any actual dialect, there wasn't anyone who could really teach it (the joke was that Chao was the only speaker of this language).
They had to scrap the whole thing and start over (and that's when they generated Putonghua).

Thanks for the lessons. I'm trying to learn french and this is helping.

Glad I could help. Welcome to the site :)

It's been about a year now and I still haven't started learning French properly :( But some day.. some day it'll happen thats for sure :)
The fastest way to get a hang of it is to watch those vids with French subs, imo.