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French verb "Essayer" | ||
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 Language Learning Forum : Specific Languages |  | |
| Spinchäeb Ape Diglot Senior Member United States Joined 4472 days ago 146 posts - 180 votes  Speaks: English*, German | Message 1 of 4 04 October 2012 at 6:03am | IP Logged | ||
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I'm brand new to French and went to learn some basic verb conjugations at frenchspanishonline.com. Part of the site lists a bunch of verbs and all their conjugations in all tenses. For now I'm just learning the present tense. I noticed the "Essayer" (to try) shows alternate spellings. Let me quote from that site:
j' essaie/essaye tu essaies/essayes il, elle, on essaie/essaye nous essayons vous essayez ils, elles essaient/essayent (from this page: http://www.frenchspanishonline.com/beginnersfrench/school/to try/essayer.html) Why are there more than one spelling for the same word. Does each spelling indicate a slightly different meaning? He seems to pronounce them differently in the audio also. 2 persons have voted this message useful | |||
| Rob Tickner Senior Member New Zealand Joined 4490 days ago 126 posts - 158 votes Speaks: English* Studies: GermanB1, French, Swedish | Message 2 of 4 04 October 2012 at 6:12am | IP Logged | ||
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I've seen explanations in the past that the different spellings represent different
pronunciations from different francophone regions. The meaning is not altered. A good explanation can be found in this person's answer here: http://fr.answers.yahoo.com/question/index?qid=2008091812013 6AAkwbLj Edited by Rob Tickner on 04 October 2012 at 6:14am 2 persons have voted this message useful | |||
| Josquin Heptaglot Senior Member Germany Joined 4846 days ago 2266 posts - 3992 votes Speaks: German*, English, French, Latin, Italian, Russian, Swedish Studies: Japanese, Irish, Portuguese, Persian | Message 3 of 4 04 October 2012 at 9:11am | IP Logged | ||
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The verbs ending in -ayer can all be conjugated in this way (e.g. payer). There's no difference in meaning. I think the endings with i are a slightly more conservative spelling than the endings with y.
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| vermillon Triglot Senior Member United Kingdom Joined 4680 days ago 602 posts - 1042 votes Speaks: French*, EnglishC2, Mandarin Studies: Japanese, German | Message 4 of 4 04 October 2012 at 1:28pm | IP Logged | ||
Note that this is still the case, some people pronounce it /e.sɛ/ and some others /esɛj/. I would even go as far as saying that I use both myself. It is possible that the /j/ pronunciation sounds a bit less educated, I don't know, they seem perfectly acceptable to me and I wouldn't even notice. As long as you don't make the mistake of conjugating "voir" in the same way, it's fine. Some people (in the subjunctive, mostly) say "que je voye" (I mean, thei pronounce /vwaj/) and that is absolutely wrong and shows your level of education. 2 persons have voted this message useful |
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