French Pronunciation
SURVIVAL GUIDE
This booklet is meant as a tool to help you with your
French pronunciation. It offers techniques and practical
advice, quizzes & tongue twisters and drama & song
opportunities to practise your pronunciation.
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The tricky sounds: advice on the French ‘r’ and other tricky sounds.
Tongue twisters
The phonetic alphabet, Forvo and rhyming.
Which letters do we pronounce and which ones not?
French Karaoke.
Drama: how to become a French actor.
Film: direct your own French movie (Xtranormal)
Final tips on how to sound more French
1. The tricky sounds:
advice on the French ‘r’ and other tricky sounds.
One of the more difficult sounds for non-native speakers remains the French
‘r’. This gargling sound is not produced with your tongue, but with your throat.
To make sure that you are not tempted to use your tongue to produce the ‘r’
sound, place the tip of a pen/pencil at the tip of your tongue (to keep it steady)
while you try to produce the French ‘r’. Do not stick your tongue out; just
leave it inside your mouth. The pencil will make sure that you won’t try to use
your tongue to produce the (English) r sound. The tip of your tongue should
touch your lower front teeth.
For a detailed explanation on how to pronounce the French ‘r’, look at the
following ‘French sounds’ video on Youtube:
French R: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BsErE00ItH0
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Another tricky sound is the ‘u’ from the word ‘tu’ or ‘une’. Many English
speakers tend to pronounce the ‘u’ as ‘oo’ like in book because the former
sound does not exist in English.
Your tongue position is central to the correct pronunciation of ‘tu’. In fact, you
need to place your tongue where you would place it to pronounce the English
‘ee’ (as in free) of the French ‘i’ (as in ‘Paris’).
The video on the link below will take you through the pronunciation step by
step.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=x4XFrRnCOvM&list=UU2L9w7ozDeUl1w5ZjUPCOQA&index=14&feature=plcp
If you found this advice useful, look
through the entire selection of sound
videos of ‘French sounds’ on Youtube.
http://www.youtube.com/user/frenchsounds
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2. Tongue twisters
The selection below comes from
http://www.momes.net/education/oral/1/apron
oncer.htm
To practise the sounds you have just learned, have some fun with the following
tongue twisters. Do not worry about their meaning too much; the main aim is
to pronounce the sounds correctly.
Le chasseur sachant chasser sans son chien, est un bon chasseur.
Son chat chante sa chanson.
Le ver vert va vers le verre vert
Les chaussettes de l'Archiduchesse sont-elles sèches, archi-sèches?
Gros gras grand grain d'orge, tout gros-gras-grand-grain-d'orgerisé,
quand te dé-gros-gras-grand-grain-d'orgeriseras-tu? Je me dé-gros-grasgrand-grain-d'orgeriserai quand tous les gros gras grands grains d'orge se
seront dé-gros-gras-grand-grain-d'orgerisés.
Dans la gendarmerie, quand un gendarme rit, tous les gendarmes rient
dans la gendarmerie.
Pourquoi les alliés ne se désolidariseraient-ils pas.
Ces cerises sont si sûres qu'on ne sait pas si c'en sont.
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Je suis ce que je suis et si je suis ce que je suis, qu'est-ce que je suis?
Un pâtissier qui pâtissait chez un tapissier qui tapissait, dit un jour au
tapissier qui tapissait: vaut-il mieux pâtisser chez un tapissier qui tapisse
ou tapisser chez un pâtissier qui pâtisse?
Il était une fois, un homme de foi qui vendait du foie dans la ville de Foix.
Il dit ma foi, c'est la dernière fois que je vends du foie dans la ville de
Foix.
Tatie, ton thé t'a-t-il ôté ta toux,
disait la tortou au tatou.
Mais pas du tout, dit le tatou,
Je tousse tant que l'on m'entend
de Tahiti au Toumbouctou
C'est l'évadé du Nevada qui dévalait dans la vallée, dans la vallée du
Nevada, qu'il dévalait pour s'évader, sur un vilain vélo volé, qu'il a volé
dans une villa, et le valet qui fut volé vit l'évadé du Nevada qui dévalait
dans la vallée, dans la vallée du Nevada, qu'il dévalait pour s'évader sur
un vilain vélo volé.
Il y a les papas Papous à poux, les Papous pas papas à poux,
et les Papoux pas papas pas à poux.
Les vers verts levèrent le verre vert vers le ver vert.
Trois petites truites crues
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To make the exercise more entertaining, cut up the tongue twisters, put them
in the middle of the table and use them as a game: time your opponent and
see how many tongue twisters he or she pronounces correctly within one
minute. Each correct tongue twister can be kept; the other ones must be put
back. The player with the most tongue twisters is the winner.
Check out how native speakers
struggle with tongue twisters:
http://www.tv5.org/TV5Site/publication/galerie-39-1Les_virelangues.htm
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4. The phonetic alphabet, ‘Forvo’ and rhyming.
One of the more difficult things with pronunciation is knowing how to
pronounce each sound. Understanding the International Phonetic Alphabet
will help you with this. If you open a (bilingual) dictionary, you will more than
likely see some funny symbols between brackets at the back of each word.
These symbols are the letters of the phonetic alphabet. To know which sound
they represent, have a look at the grid* below.
*The symbol for the French ‘r’ is R
Now that you understand this alphabet, how would you write down the
pronunciation of the following French words with the phonetic alphabet? If
you are ready, check in a dictionary of your answer was correct.
Mouton:
lapin:
garage:
Chat:
canard:
français:
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If all this is too complicated and if you have access to a computer, you can
always look at the following website, where native speakers offer you the
pronunciation of difficult words. Just select your language, type in the word
you want and listen. This, by the way, can be an excellent resource to prepare
you for official speaking examinations and other assessments.
www.forvo.com
You can choose
your language and
browse for
pronunciations.
Or you can type in a
word in the
language, then
select your
language and
choose a
pronunciation.
http://www.voki.com/ Or create an avatar on voki.
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To be able to rhyme, you must pronounce words correctly, so don’t forget to
check the pronunciation of difficult words in a dictionary (if you can read the
phonetic alphabet or through www.forvo.com (if you can’t).
Now try to find rhyming words for the following set of words:
beau
danse
géographie
ensemble
école
tard
amour
As you may have noticed, rhyming in a different language is actually a lot more
difficult than may appear at first sight. This is why the following online rhyming
dictionary can be useful:
http://rime-en.fr/
Now try to find some other rhyming words for the same set of words, by
accessing the online rhyming dictionary mentioned above.
beau
danse
géographie
ensemble
école
tard
amour
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5. Which letters do we pronounce and which ones not?
Unfortunately, French is not a phonetic language, so there is no transparent
sound-writing relationship. This makes it hard to pronounce written text in
French, as you don’t always know how to pronounce each sound. On top of
that, in French there are many letters which you should not pronounce at all.
The following website gives excellent and thorough advice on the notion of
silent letters. The summaries in the boxes are direct quotes from this website.
http://french.about.com/library/pronunciation/bl-lettresmuettes.htm
There are three categories of silent letters in French.
In a nutshell:
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E muet / Elision
Final consonants
H muet and aspiré
Where does the letter E represent an E muet?
A.
In the nine single syllable words with one consonant
ce, de, je,
le, me, ne,
que, se, te
B.
At the end of a word, possibly followed by other silent letters
homme
femmes
parlent
C.
In the non-final syllable of a word, after a consonant sound and before one of the
following:
1.
single consonant sound
devoirs
recherche
logement
2.
consonant + liquid consonant°
chevronné
secrétaire
replacer
D.
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Miscellaneous
1.
The re- prefix in front of ss
ressortir
ressource
2.
These three words
dessous
dessus
dehors
The basic rule of French pronunciation for final consonants
is that the final consonant is not pronounced, but there are many
exceptions
The letters B, C, F, K, L, Q, and R are usually pronounced at the end
of a word. Tip: Since B, K, and Q are rare as final consonants, some
people find it helpful to use the word CaReFuL to remember the most
common of the usually pronounced final consonants.
The other French consonants are usually
silent at the end of a word, with some
exceptions. Tip: many exceptions are
proper names or words borrowed from
other languages.
The letters M and N are
usually silent, but
remember that they cause
the vowel preceding them
to be nasal.
The letter H is always silent in French. However,
there are two different kinds of H's: H muet and
H aspiré. The type of H at the beginning of the
word lets you know whether to make contractions
and pronounce liaisons with that word. To find out
whether the H in a particular word is muet or
aspiré, check a good French dictionary. There will
be an asterisk or some other symbol to distinguish
the two kinds of H's.
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6. French Karaoke.
Music is a superb resource when it comes to pronunciation. Download French
songs, put them on your Iphones and sing along! Youtube also has a wealth of
good songs available, which often include the lyrics, so you can do your own
French Karaoke.
If you are not a good singer, don’t worry. French rap is pretty amazing and
rapping is a fantastic way to practise your pronunciation.
See below a selection of songs and raps which work very well. Check out the
links on Youtube, look at or print off the lyrics and have fun with your
pronunciation!
Elle me dit (Mika):
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NiHWwKC8WjU
Search for the lyrics online and print them off.
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Alors on danse (Stromae):
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GJCQDd4vYjg
Lyrics included in the video link
Ca m’énerve (Helmut Fritz):
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Careful: done in a mock German accent! (Lyrics included in the video)
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ffk9GioKkVk
Jour de paix (113 et Blacko):
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bwx-WbNv_ho
Lyrics included in the video
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Celui (Colonel Reyel):
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rRFgl2-PzHg
Lyrics included in the video
7. Drama: how to become a French actor.
Another brilliant way to focus on your French pronunciation is by acting out
French playscripts. The link below gives you the choice between a range of
short, adapted playscripts. The French Star Wars play script works particularly
well and is brilliant as an end of term project.
http://www.play-script-and-song.com/fsl-french-activities.html
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Je suis ton père!
8. Film: direct your own French movie
To familiarise yourself with the sounds of the French language, you can also
direct your own French animated movie through the use of the website
mentioned below. In this case, you will need to prepare your own script or use
an existing script. This one could be as simple as a role play. You can create
your own backgrounds, actions etc and make the actors say your lines in
French. Unfortunately, you need to pay if you want to publish and save your
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sources. However, you can do a free trial session, which is pretty fun, so have a
try!
http://www.xtranormal.com/
9. Final tips on how to sound more French
The French speak with their hands. They also make a lot of ‘sounds’ which
cannot be found in the dictionary, but are really part of everyday French
conversations. Finally, don’t be afraid of exaggerating your intonation. Try to
have a conversation with your neighbour pretending to be a French person
speaking English with a French accent. What did you notice? What did you do?
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Which sounds did you exaggerate? Now try to do the same when you speak
French yourself. Strangely enough most pupils are quite good at imitating a
French person speaking English, but they often forget to apply the same
language features to their own French pronunciation.
And if all this is too hard, you can always fake you French! Have a look at how
Joey tries to sound French without being able to speak a word of it by
accessing the following clip:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=w5O9EuWttaM&feature=related
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Bonne Chance!
And have fun with your pronunciation!
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