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French open and closed vowels | ||
Tags: Pronunciation | French | ||
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 Language Learning Forum : Specific Languages |  | |
| Medulin Tetraglot Senior Member Croatia Joined 4507 days ago 1199 posts - 2192 votes  Speaks: Croatian*, English, Spanish, Portuguese Studies: Norwegian, Hindi, Nepali | Message 9 of 12 12 February 2013 at 7:25am | IP Logged | |||||
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''In open unstressed syllables, the pronunciation is
always open where there is a corresponding stressed syllable in this vowel/, e.g. écolier/, global , philosophique... corresponding to école, globe, philosophe, /o/ where there is a corresponding stressed vowel in /o/, e.g. beaucoup /boku/, beauté /bote/, côté /kote/, grossier /grosje/, hauteur /otœ:r/...corresponding to beau /bo/, côte /ko:t/,gros /gro/, haut/o/... (but note, as exceptions, atomique /atOmik/, idiomatique /idjOmatik/, polaire /pOlε:r/, beside atome /ato:m/, idiome /idjo:m/, pôle/po:l/). Elsewhere, the pronunciation is open /O/ in most words, e.g. diplomate /diplOmat/, forêt /fOrε/, fromage /frOma:ʒ/, honnête /Onεt/, moteur /mOtœ:r/, olive /Oli:v/, oreille /Orεj/.. Note that this also applies to the prefix co- in hiatus with a following vowel, e.g. coexister /kOεgziste/, coopérer/kOOpere/, coordonner /kOOrdone/. /o/ occurs, however, in the following circumstances: (i) in many words having the spelling au (ii) before /z/, e.g. arroser /aroze/, groseille /grozεj/.., (iii) in the ending -otion In many words, either pronunciation is possible, e.g. autel /Otεl/ or /otεl/, auto /Oto/ or /oto/, automne /OtOn/ or /otOn/, fossile/fOsil/ or /fosil/, hôpital /Opital/ (the more usual pronunciation) or /opital/, hôtel /Otεl/ or /otεl/, mauvais /mOvε/ or /movε/... note that this also applies to the future and conditional of the verbs avoir, falloir,savoir and valoir, e.g. (je) saurai /sOre/ or /sore/, (il)vaudrait /vOdrε/ or /vodrε/. Alternatively, as in the case of /e/ and /ε/ (10.6.5 (i) ) and of /ø/ and /œ/ (10.7.7 (iii) ), an intermediate vowel, i.e. a vowel somewhere between /o/ and /O/, is often heard in unstressed syllables, either closed or open.'' (G. Price, Introduction to French Pronunciation). Edited by Medulin on 12 February 2013 at 7:28am 3 persons have voted this message useful | ||||||
| outcast Bilingual Heptaglot Senior Member China Joined 4788 days ago 869 posts - 1364 votes Speaks: Spanish*, English*, German, Italian, French, Portuguese, Mandarin Studies: Korean | Message 10 of 12 12 February 2013 at 3:17pm | IP Logged | |||||
I was going to say... When I did an oral test it just sounded totally wrong to say "dos" with the "o" like "pote"! And I have never heard it said like that in France, television or people, any dialect (my sample size of course is not exactly comprehensive). If that is as written in Belgium it still is odd to me because I would have guessed Dutch has the same vowel distribution as German (long and usually closed "e/o/etc" in front of one consonant, short and open in front of consonant clusters). Of course that could be me assuming totally wrong, but I studied the Swedish vowel system and it was the same principles as German, so that's what I figured... Edited by outcast on 12 February 2013 at 3:21pm 1 person has voted this message useful | ||||||
| tarvos Super Polyglot Winner TAC 2012 Senior Member China likeapolyglot.wordpr Joined 4546 days ago 5310 posts - 9399 votes Speaks: Dutch*, English, Swedish, French, Russian, German, Italian, Norwegian, Mandarin, Romanian, Afrikaans Studies: Greek, Modern Hebrew, Spanish, Portuguese, Czech, Korean, Esperanto, Finnish | Message 11 of 12 12 February 2013 at 3:47pm | IP Logged | |||||
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Dutch does not have the same vowel distribution as German does. Furthermore, some
vowels are VERY different in Belgium than they are in the Netherlands. However, like I already said, I agree that it sounds weird to me, but I copied from Wikipedia. Please don't be afraid of checking the wiki's source on Belgian French phonology. In standard Dutch, a/e/o function like in German. Long e in Dutch is like French é, short is è, unstressed e is a schwa. In Dutch, often, long vowels are written doubled, so nar-naar is a minimal pair. In the case of "u", it's different. Dutch short "u" doesn't really figure in German, and "uu" is ü. The German "u" sound is written "oe" in Dutch. Short I is like "i" in German, long i is written "ie". We then have a bunch of diphthongs as well. In Flemish, the diphthongs move around quite a bit. I am no expert on Flemish phonology, however. In Dutch, pot and poot (pot vs paw) are a minimal pair. The first has a short o, like in German "Sonne". double o is like in "Boot". I assume what they mean is that under influence of Dutch, this distinction is somehow upheld in Bruxellois French. 1 person has voted this message useful | ||||||
| berabero89 Diglot Senior Member United States Joined 4481 days ago 101 posts - 137 votes Speaks: English, Amharic* Studies: Spanish, Japanese, French | Message 12 of 12 14 February 2013 at 1:01am | IP Logged | |||||
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Thank you very much everyone, your help is appreciated. After seeing that there is this
much variation among native speakers, I feel more at ease now and probably won't fret over it as much. 1 person has voted this message useful |
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