Is spoken French similar to formal French used in books and Newspapers?

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Millie

Actually spoken French is very different from written French, the difference is far worse than in English.

For instance, "je ne sais pas" (which should be 4 syllables) is often pronounced "ch'ais pas" (2 syllables), "je suis" becomes "ch'uis", "il vient" becomes "y vient". We are very lazy and drop a lot of sounds.

However, you should always speak the proper way (as taught in books) until you feel comfortable enough with the language to speak like a French person. It usually takes some time living there to grasp that. And there is nothing wrong with speaking better than the average Frenchman, on the contrary.

Now dialects are a completely different matter. This has nothing to do with the difference between spoken and written French. France has a variety of regions with different languages (Alsatian - a dialect of German, Breton -similar to Welsh, Occitan -a dialect of latin and French I think?, Corsican - a dialect of Italian) and regional versions of French: "patois" (dialects of French).

Now dialects and accents are two different things again. When we talk of accents, we talk of French accents. The French you are taught is most likely standard French as it is spoken near Paris. But there is also a typically Parisian accent which is not standard French either, the one spoken by real Parisians (you have to be Parisian for 5 generations to be considered a true Parisian) in traditionnally working-class districts.

The most distinct accents you might notice are those from the southern regions of France. South eastern accent is different from south western accent. In the very north of France and in Alsace, the accents are also very different from the standard French. Elsewhere they are less noticeable.

To Parisians, southerners have a "singing" accent (they also pronounce last consonants that are usually silent in standard French). To southerners, Parisians have a "pointy/hard" accent. Easterners have a hard, germanic accent, etc. Also country people speak differently from city people. Older people in rural areas may still roll the R as in Italian or Spanish. But with the influence of television, accents tend to disappear a little. Whereas regional languages are on the rise and can be taught at university.

Then there is also French spoken in other French-speaking countries. There are differences in accents and words used, as there are differences between the English spoken in the US, England, Scotland, Ireland, Australia, Canada, etc. In tropical islands like Reunion, Martinique, Guadeloupe, they may use creole, which is a modified version of French, difficult to understand by the continental Frenchman. Haitian creole is really different and probably the most difficult to understand for us. Just to give you a few examples, to the French, some Canadians have a rural, nasal 'old time' accent and the Swiss speak slowly and stretch syllables a lot. But even in Canada there are many different accents as there are different acents in England or in the US.

An accent may be in relation to a given "standard pronunciation" or in relation to your own. The town of Tours in France (on the Loire) is supposed to have the best French speakers (closest to standard and closest to written form).

To answer your last question: yes, you should be able to understand most people in France, with more or less difficulty. It may actually depend on individuals rather than the region you're in. I once had a really hard time understanding a girl (a shop assistant) from the south and after asking her to repeat a few times ended up pretending I understood her. But to this day I still have no idea what she said. You'll have at least the excuse of being a foreigner, which is better than being taken for an obnoxious Parisian.

Cabal

Text book French is understood by everyone as this is the standard French, the one you have on TV news, of course you have short cuts in pronunciation and use of a less complex grammar but this is not a different dialect (I am not talking about 'street French' which is just as bad as 'street American'). The higher you go socially the more people speak book French, without taking any pronunciation short cut and using the more complex grammar. If you speak book French all you risk is to be taken for middle class and higher... or stuck up.

You do have some dialects in France but that's used only in their small specific areas, you also have other languages (Breton, Provencal etc) but people who speak those learned French as first language.

Celestine C

Oui!

Matt

Spoken and written french are the same and you won't have any trouble whatsoever understanding the former if you understand the latter.

Now there are a few "simplifications" in spoken french. In questions, for instance, word order should be reversed. Most of the time it isn't done in speech. You'll pick up small habits like this when you get a chance to talk to real people. No big deal.

sotires

I can only just understand some of my son's friends when they talk to each other. Their French bears very little resemblance to anything in any text book.

mettez

spoken french resembles written french, but the two look and sound different. When one speaks, one drops several sylables and many sounds (tu as becomes t'as for instance). Also, when speaking the French curse all the same (no quite as vulgarly as an anglophone, but it gets the job done). Also, when speaking the French inject a bunch of pointless words taht would be omitted in writing, such as enfin, bon, ben all of which would be rendered as "like" in English. Today, the french have the extremely annoying habit of ending almost all of their spoken sentences with quoi (what). This makes them sound totally ignorant and one longs for the silent distain they usually reserve for foreigners as opposed to their inarticulate manner of speaking. (not that i havea grudge or anything).
p.s. if you are learning french out of a book, kiss goodbye ever having a perfect accent. sorry, it does not work that way. good luck and bonne continuation

Zaza

I'm French and Ihave difficuties myself, sometimes, to understand my compatriotes of another region.
Accent is sometimes manifest.

Boubou

The difference is that writting in french is usually much more formal than speaking. But they are the same language.

To answer to your question, YES. You will be understood by everybody. But it may just sound a little bit formal.

In anycase, the only way to not be sound "foreign" is to live in the country and practise! See you in France, it is beautiful ;-)

â™¥ Star â™¥

its pretty much the same altough some words like tu and vous which both mean you r different but as long as the book has both then ya its the same

Michael

they are wrong book french is Paris french go somewhere like breton and you will find its a different language, although they will appreciate you speaking book french there even though there local language is the same as Welsh

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