Help with french prounciation?

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Matthew :O

For words ending in ~re the ~re is pronounced simply re. (ex. Apprendre=to learn, ap-rond-re) For the ~er verbs, you say a long a sound. (ex. Parler=to speak, par-lay)

For Quatre (=four), you say cat-re.
Xs are usally found beside a u, au, or eau, and pronunced like oh. (ex. Bateaux=boats, bat-oh Aux, oh eaux=waters, oh - the "eaux" syllable of bateaux is just "oh" like the work "eaux") Xs are most used to pluralize words whose singular forms end in u or al. (ex. bateau, bateaux).

Ss at the beginning of words are pronounced as in english. (ex. Sérpent=snake, Sir-pon) At the end of words, they are silent, unless followed by a word that starts with a vowel. This is called a liason, lee-ay-son. (ex. Les Animaux=animals, Lays An-ee-mo. Now that you know how to pronounce Xs... Try saying les animaux with the s in "les" as silent then as a liason to "animaux")

Words with apostrophies are comparble to those en english. We're is pronounces We-re. So in french you would say Je m'appelle (my name is, lit. I call myself) as Ge map-el. It is shortened because there is an ending vowel, in "me", followed by a beginning vowel, in "appelle", hense m'appelle. The same thing occours in J'ai, meaning I have. (from Je ai).

Accents:
é Accent Aigu: makes the e sound like a long a (ay)
ex.Passé=passed, Pass-ay Café=coffee, Caf-ay

è Accent Grave: Makes a quicker short e sound like ehh (like the e in complex)
ex. Très=much, Treh *not Trays. this is a mistake many french learners make. If it was pronounced Trays, it would be spelled Trés, with an accent aigu, which is wrong*

ê Accent Circonflexe: Has no effect on pronounciation, though it is used only on short e sounds.
ex. Même=same, Mem

â, ô Accent Circonflexe: No effect on pronciation. Usually put on As and Os where in more ancient times, there was an s in the word, but through time was removed.
ex. Forêt=forest, Fo-rei Hôpital=hospital, Ho-pee-tal Château=castle sha-toe

î Accent Circonflexe: Not really any effect on pronounciation
ex. Naître=to be born, Na-tre

ï Trema: make an iee sound (like screaming when getting poked aiee!)
Maïs=corn, my-ee

ç Cedille (say-dee): Created a soft c sound where it would normally be a hard one.
ex. (nous) commençons=(we) start, (new) come-on-son as opposed to commencons (note no cedille) pronounced come-on-kon

Bonne Chance! (bun chansse)

-just add details for anything that you need that I may have missed

Note to Robert H:

for the word LYCÉE, you put the wrong accent on the second to last e. It should be an aigu, not a grave. Also there is no accent on the a in the word PLAIT, in s'il vous plait.

megan6o6

i am a freshman also, but i am taking french 2.
thats horrible that you have a bad teacherr.

to say things with the re at the end, it is just like making that tiny little growling R sound in the back of your throat, im not sure how to explain it, but im sure you know what i mean. for example to say "quatre" you could just say it like "kat-r".

The last letters in word don't get pronounced becuase they never do unless the word end in a vowel. It helps to signify if the word is masculane or feminine.like Chien/ chiene. Grand/Grande.it helps pronunciate.

The lines on the top of the leeters just make the letter have a different sound to them. ` on top of a letter is an accent grave it can make the letter with it sound like an a.(graa-vuh) the one the opposite way is an accent agu( not sure on spellin, but said like Ah-goo), and the little triangle one are accent circumflex. The little backwards c on the regular C's just make the letter sound like an S.

When the words blend the only reason why is becuase the last word ended with a vowel and the next one started with one. That can't happen. So they connect them to make is easier. like J'adore. (je adore) or J'aime(je aime) C'est (ce est) or Qu'est-ce que. (Que est-que.) those are just some. You just same them like there is no apostrophe at all.

hope this helpss.
if notim sure there are cds or somethingg. it would be easier to explain if i could say it out loud, but bonne chance!(good luck)

fleshtonejm

Sounds like your teacher is not a good one indeed!
Have you got a french-english dictionary: they give you the phonetics and so you can figure out the pronunciation (even if it's not as good as a proper lesson and you must know phonetics...)

Hopefully your teacher will be better next year.

I've had good and bad english teachers, well any topic really; obviously a good teacher will be captivating and will make you learn easier...

As far as getting advice from this site, the french language is really vast and I wouldn't count on it.

Is there any french community in your town where you could join a discussion group? That's the best thing I can think of...

benoît, simple escargot

Just a french site about french pronunciation :
http://phonetique.free.fr/alpha.htm (the second column)

Rose T

You can subscribe to the French word of the day email, which includes a link to hear the word spoken. It's free! www.transparent.com

You can buy language CD sets at bookstores. I have a set of CDs from Living Language that I listen to in my car.

You can listen to French music and watch French films. Netflix has a large selection of French language films, and sometimes such films are also available on my cable system's On Demand list. (I have Comcast cable.)

One last thing...unlike Spanish which has rules and not too many exceptions, French is a language of exceptions; therefore, it is a language of memorization. For example, in Spanish you almost always can tell the gender of a noun by the last letter - words ending in o are almost always masculine, while words ending in a are almost always feminine. However, in French you must memorize the gender when you learn the noun.

As a second example, although most of the time you would make a liaison between a word that ends in a consonant and a word that starts with a vowel, there are of course exceptions. Les animaux is one that you would connect (pronounced lay zahn ee moh), but Les Halles is not (pronounced Lay all).

Anyway, good luck, and hang in there. Eventually, if you listen to enough French, you will get it.

Robert H

well a few words might help...

high school-lycèe- lee-say
please-sil vous plâit-see-voo-play
thank you-merci-mare-see

and heres a little song some kid made up 2 halp conjugate re verbs

for je we add an S
for tu we add an S
for il and elle we leave it alone for nous add ONS
for vous we add EZ
ils & elles ENT
and thats the way we conjugate a regular re-verb!!! woo! :-)

ex. répondre= to respond

je répondS nous répondONS
tu repondS vous répondEZ
il/elle-répond ils/elles répondENT

well i know this barely helps but i hope u get a lot from it ;-)

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