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French ai pronunciation | ||
Tags: Pronunciation | French | ||
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 Language Learning Forum : Specific Languages |  | |
| ReQuest Tetraglot Senior Member Netherlands Joined 5033 days ago 200 posts - 228 votes  Speaks: Dutch*, English, German, French Studies: Spanish | Message 1 of 10 19 June 2011 at 7:59pm | IP Logged |
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So this is a thing thats really bothering me lately, how do pronounce the france ai?
I'm aiming for a france french prononciation. So is the prononcation more like a é or a è? Edited by ReQuest on 19 June 2011 at 8:00pm 1 person has voted this message useful | |
| Ari Heptaglot Senior Member Norway Joined 6583 days ago 2314 posts - 5695 votes Speaks: Swedish*, English, French, Spanish, Portuguese, Mandarin, Cantonese Studies: Czech, Latin, German | Message 2 of 10 19 June 2011 at 8:51pm | IP Logged |
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Like 'è'. The spelling 'ei' also generally share the same sound. Check out this video for example:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=10v3mzalEA0. EDIT: Forum messed up the link. Edited by Ari on 19 June 2011 at 8:53pm 2 persons have voted this message useful | |
| Cabaire Senior Member Germany Joined 5600 days ago 725 posts - 1352 votes | Message 3 of 10 19 June 2011 at 11:12pm | IP Logged |
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The pronunciation of the French grapheme /ai/ is not uniform.
Let me quote Wikipedia: ai vaut : généralement /e/ en fin de mot: « gai » /ge/, « (je) mangeai » /mɑ̃ge/ /ɛ/ ailleurs /ə/ dans certains cas : « faisan » /fəzɑ̃/, « faisant » /fəzɑ̃/, « faisons » /fəzɔ̃/, « faiseur » /fəzœʁ/, « faisable » /fəzabl/. toutefois il existe de nombreuses exceptions ainsi que des variations de prononciations, dont voici quelques exemples : /ɛ/ en fin de mot dans « vrai » /vʁɛ/, « chai » /ʃɛ/, « balai » /balɛ/ etc. /e/ dans « aigu », « aiguiser » et « aiguille », mais /ɛ/ est toléré. /e/ traditionnellement, dans « sais », « vais », « sait » et « vait », mais /ɛ/ est courant. en fin de verbe conjugué à la première personne du passé simple et à la première personne du futur simple, « ai » est parfois réalisé comme /ɛ/, ce qui ne permet plus de distinguer le passé simple (« je donnai ») de l'imparfait (« je donnais ») par harmonie vocalique, « ai » est parfois réalisé /e/ lorsque la voyelle de la syllabe suivante est /e/, par exemple : « affairer » /afɛʁe/ ou /afeʁe/ mais uniquement « j’affaire » /afɛʁ/; « baiser » /bɛze/ ou /beze/ mais « je baise » /bɛz/ Edited by Cabaire on 19 June 2011 at 11:35pm 1 person has voted this message useful | |
| Jeffers Senior Member United Kingdom Joined 4910 days ago 2151 posts - 3960 votes Speaks: English* Studies: Hindi, Ancient Greek, French, Sanskrit, German | Message 4 of 10 19 June 2011 at 11:34pm | IP Logged |
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Great link, Ari, thank you.
As a complete beginner (2nd week), I wish they had put translations on the video as well. But that's just being picky. 1 person has voted this message useful | |
| torie Newbie Canada Joined 4907 days ago 9 posts - 14 votes Speaks: English* Studies: French, Russian | Message 5 of 10 20 June 2011 at 6:13am | IP Logged |
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I live in Canada and from my experience, French-Canadians more often pronounce "ai" as
"è" and those from France pronounce it as "é". Cabaire is right that it isn't uniform, but in the case of many verbs endings, it is é. The imparfait is a great example of this. 1 person has voted this message useful | |
| caracao Triglot Groupie France Joined 5121 days ago 53 posts - 84 votes Speaks: French*, English, Italian Studies: German | Message 6 of 10 20 June 2011 at 3:48pm | IP Logged |
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In Normandy we prononce ai "é".
Edited by caracao on 20 June 2011 at 3:48pm 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 7 of 10 20 June 2011 at 4:14pm | IP Logged |
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Generally, it's é in an open syllable (a syllable that ends with that vowel sound: aimer [é.mé]) and è in a closed syllable (ends with a consonant: aime [èm]).
However, in most European dialects, this distinction tends to disappear in a word-final open syllable, so that both -ais and -ai sound like è. (-ai should sound like é) In fact, if you search a phrase like "demain j'irais" in Google, which should be "j'irai", you'll find lots of examples of native speakers misspelling the word. This is a clear indication that both words sound the same. This error is very common in Europe and uncommon in places like Canada where the distinction is still clearly made. Edited by Arekkusu on 20 June 2011 at 4:15pm 3 persons have voted this message useful | |
| futuramalang Newbie United States futuramalanguages.weRegistered users can see my Skype Name Joined 4906 days ago 6 posts - 7 votes | Message 8 of 10 21 June 2011 at 9:30pm | IP Logged |
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Hi,
I know that a lot of people have already said it, but I just want to clarify as well! "Ai", in French, is pronounced like the English sound "ay" or the french é. This always used to confuse me in the future tense because of the Italian future tense in the tu form is -ai, but it is pronounced "eye". I hope this helps! -Futurama Languages http://futuramalanguages.weebly.com 1 person has voted this message useful |
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