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Fr.: Pronunciation of vin, bien, vingt | ||
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 Language Learning Forum : Questions About Your Target Languages |  | |
| Footnoted Newbie United States Joined 4858 days ago 35 posts - 42 votes Speaks: English* Studies: French | Message 1 of 14 14 February 2012 at 3:37pm | IP Logged | ||||||||
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While working through Pimsleur French I seem to be picking up different ways that the different speakers pronounce the same words, particularly "vin," the vowel sound for which sometimes seems to sound like the (American) English "a" sound in "van" and sometimes more like the (American) English vowel sound in "pawn." The same variations seems to occur with the word "vingt." Also "bien" sometimes seems to sound like "byuh" and other times like "byah." Am I not hearing correctly, or are these regional distinctions, or is something else at work? Thanks for any replies! Edited by Footnoted on 14 February 2012 at 3:37pm 1 person has voted this message useful | |||||||||
| Arekkusu Hexaglot Senior Member Canada bit.ly/qc_10_lec Joined 5382 days ago 3971 posts - 7747 votes  Speaks: English, French*, GermanC1, Spanish, Japanese, Esperanto Studies: Italian, Norwegian, Mandarin, Romanian, Estonian | Message 2 of 14 14 February 2012 at 4:47pm | IP Logged | ||||||||
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I haven't heard Pimsleur, but there is definitely a certain amount of variation within speakers for nasal vowels.
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| LaughingChimp Senior Member Czech Republic Joined 4700 days ago 346 posts - 594 votes Speaks: Czech* | Message 3 of 14 14 February 2012 at 6:17pm | IP Logged | ||||||||
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Are you sure they are not saying different words than you think? These sounds are separate phonemes in French.
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| Footnoted Newbie United States Joined 4858 days ago 35 posts - 42 votes Speaks: English* Studies: French | Message 4 of 14 14 February 2012 at 6:44pm | IP Logged | ||||||||
100% sure. 1 person has voted this message useful | |||||||||
| Medulin Tetraglot Senior Member Croatia Joined 4669 days ago 1199 posts - 2192 votes Speaks: Croatian*, English, Spanish, Portuguese Studies: Norwegian, Hindi, Nepali | Message 5 of 14 15 February 2012 at 12:46am | IP Logged | ||||||||
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There is an ongoing nasal vowel shift in both European and Canadian French (but in opposite directions).
Even though phonemes are kept separate, each phoneme has many different allophones, and there is overlapping of realization/pronunciation: Read here: (copy and paste) http://journals.cambridge.org/action/displayAbstract?fromPag e=online&aid=105172 http://books.google.hr/books?id=4yTA6SvGuekC&pg=PA34&lpg=PA3 4&dq=parisian+nasal+shift&source=bl&ots=wDAmEsCnqd&sig=JYpil rQWQbB4IDX5n_DszYqQCW0&hl=es&sa=X&ei=cPE6T5PMOYHHtAaTq_iABw& redir_esc=y#v=onepage&q=parisian%20nasal%20shift&f=false Edited by Medulin on 15 February 2012 at 12:51am 1 person has voted this message useful | |||||||||
| Suzumiya Diglot Groupie VenezuelaRegistered users can see my Skype Name Joined 4894 days ago 43 posts - 64 votes Speaks: Spanish*, English Studies: Japanese | Message 6 of 14 15 February 2012 at 1:26am | IP Logged | ||||||||
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The vowel in vingt is a nasal E /ɛ̃/, the word 'vin' is pronounced as vingt, so only context and spelling can tell you which is which. Bien is pronounced as /bjɛ̃/. Same nasal vowel as the other ones. In France French that's the pronunciation, there might be some variations in Canadian French. Perhaps you are just not used to nasal sounds yet, that's why you don't hear them clearly and mistake them. Edited by Suzumiya on 15 February 2012 at 1:26am 1 person has voted this message useful | |||||||||
| LaughingChimp Senior Member Czech Republic Joined 4700 days ago 346 posts - 594 votes Speaks: Czech* | Message 7 of 14 15 February 2012 at 1:47am | IP Logged | ||||||||
Then the most likely explanation is that the boundary between these sounds is different, than between the two a vowels in American English, so you sometimes hear the other sound if the speaker happen to pronounce it closer to the "pawn" vowel.
No, [ɛ̃] is probably the Canadian pronunciation, European French uses [æ̃], possibly even [ã]. 2 persons have voted this message useful | |||||||||
| garyb Triglot Senior Member ScotlandRegistered users can see my Skype Name Joined 5208 days ago 1468 posts - 2413 votes Speaks: English*, Italian, French Studies: Spanish | Message 8 of 14 15 February 2012 at 10:44am | IP Logged | ||||||||
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Pretty sure that Suzumiya is right, it's /ɛ̃/ and that's how I hear most French people say it. I have heard the opposite though, for example Canadian and Southern French people pronouncing /ɛ̃/ rather than /ã/ in words like "français".
Anyway this just seems like a manifestation of the complete failure by Pimsleur to teach pronunciation correctly, leaving the listener to guess and probably get it wrong because they don't have an accurate mental model of the sound system and they're trying to equate the sounds with similar sounds in their native language. From my experience it's much better to learn the sound system properly before going onto audio-based courses, although that can be easier said than done as it's hard to find resources that teach it properly. And if you have anything less than a perfect ear, it's a good idea to look up the standard pronunciation of a word in the dictionary if at all in doubt. 3 persons have voted this message useful |
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