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How long to read French aloud correctly? | ||
Tags: Pronunciation | French | ||
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 Language Learning Forum : Specific Languages |  | |
| Arekkusu Hexaglot Senior Member Canada bit.ly/qc_10_lec Joined 5227 days ago 3971 posts - 7747 votes  Speaks: English, French*, GermanC1, Spanish, Japanese, Esperanto Studies: Italian, Norwegian, Mandarin, Romanian, Estonian | Message 9 of 29 13 March 2013 at 2:40pm | IP Logged | |||||
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Spelling French is an awful lot more complicated than reading it. A native English speaker facing an unknown word will often be at a loss as to how to say it or how to stress it, but it's not usually the case in French. There tends to be only one way to say a word, unless it features some irregularity, which is not very common (scientific words with -ch- for instance).
The sound "o" can be spelled in so many ways, but all of these spellings unambiguously point back to that sound: o oh os ohs ot ots ô ôt ôts od ods au aut aud aux auds auts ault eau eaux eaut eaud eauts eauds haut hauts ... 2 persons have voted this message useful | ||||||
| tarvos Super Polyglot Winner TAC 2012 Senior Member China likeapolyglot.wordpr Joined 4553 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 10 of 29 13 March 2013 at 2:52pm | IP Logged | |||||
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Is o and ô always pronounced the same?
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| tastyonions Triglot Senior Member United States goo.gl/UIdChYRegistered users can see my Skype Name Joined 4511 days ago 1044 posts - 1823 votes Speaks: English*, French, Spanish Studies: Italian | Message 11 of 29 13 March 2013 at 3:00pm | IP Logged | |||||
As far as I know, "ô" is always pronounced /o/ (Arekkusu can correct me if I'm wrong) but "o" can be pronounced /o/ or /ɔ/ depending on where it is in relation to other letters (e.g. /o/ in "rose" and "mot", but /ɔ/ in "motif" and "sol"). But yeah, figuring out the spelling in French is pretty tough. I write a lot of stuff down, so I'm getting a little bit of intuitive sense for what looks right, but it still fails me at times. :-) Edited by tastyonions on 13 March 2013 at 3:04pm 1 person has voted this message useful | ||||||
| Arekkusu Hexaglot Senior Member Canada bit.ly/qc_10_lec Joined 5227 days ago 3971 posts - 7747 votes Speaks: English, French*, GermanC1, Spanish, Japanese, Esperanto Studies: Italian, Norwegian, Mandarin, Romanian, Estonian | Message 12 of 29 13 March 2013 at 3:01pm | IP Logged | |||||
In isolation and in word-final position, yes, but you do have a serious point: open vs. close, and short vs. long vowels can indeed be hard to tell from the spelling... 1 person has voted this message useful | ||||||
| Ogrim Heptaglot Senior Member France Joined 4485 days ago 991 posts - 1896 votes Speaks: Norwegian*, English, Spanish, French, Romansh, German, Italian Studies: Russian, Catalan, Latin, Greek, Romanian | Message 13 of 29 13 March 2013 at 3:49pm | IP Logged | |||||
That is because one of the spelling rules in French says that you never put an accent on a vowel followed by two consonants or x (except consonant groups ending in r or l). Some examples: Without accent mark: espace, dessin, examen, excellent. With accent mark: règle, ébriété, égratigner. 3 persons have voted this message useful | ||||||
| tastyonions Triglot Senior Member United States goo.gl/UIdChYRegistered users can see my Skype Name Joined 4511 days ago 1044 posts - 1823 votes Speaks: English*, French, Spanish Studies: Italian | Message 14 of 29 13 March 2013 at 3:54pm | IP Logged | |||||
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Cool, thanks. I didn't know that.
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| Arekkusu Hexaglot Senior Member Canada bit.ly/qc_10_lec Joined 5227 days ago 3971 posts - 7747 votes Speaks: English, French*, GermanC1, Spanish, Japanese, Esperanto Studies: Italian, Norwegian, Mandarin, Romanian, Estonian | Message 15 of 29 13 March 2013 at 3:57pm | IP Logged | |||||
...where the consonant is not an r or an l. (There is no accent before rr or ll.) 1 person has voted this message useful | ||||||
| tarvos Super Polyglot Winner TAC 2012 Senior Member China likeapolyglot.wordpr Joined 4553 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 16 of 29 13 March 2013 at 4:02pm | IP Logged | |||||
Ok, I tend to follow the (roundabout) rule for French that an o is long unless there's a double consonant behind it. But this is good for my French pronunciation, which isn't bad (but I do distinguish vowel length in French, a) because vowel length is something very typical of Dutch speakers learning French and b) because vowel quality is more often distinguished in Belgian French than in standard French, and that was the model I learned French off of). But after 12 years of pronouncing French I'd have to be able to have a feel for how it sounds. By the way, a tidbit of funny side info: in atlases, the back of the book lists a guide to the pronunciation of foreign place names for a wide range of foreign languages. Because most people own the "Bosatlas" which is used in the schooling system, and French (and German) are compulsory in secondary schools, it is assumed that German, English and French (aside from Dutch) pronunciations are KNOWN to Dutch speakers. Which seems to be a fallacious assumption given the strength of Dutch accents in all three languages (although a lot of it is prosodical; the phonemes are often prnonounced correctly independently in French). Edited by tarvos on 13 March 2013 at 4:08pm 1 person has voted this message useful |
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