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Guidance on French pronunciation | ||
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 Language Learning Forum : Language Learning Log |  | |
| epingchris Triglot Senior Member Taiwan shih-chuan.blog.ntu. Joined 6971 days ago 273 posts - 284 votes  5 sounds Studies: Taiwanese, Mandarin*, English, FrenchB2 Studies: Japanese, German, Turkish | Message 1 of 17 17 January 2008 at 9:22am | IP Logged | |||||
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I just uploaded a sound file of me reading off a short paragraph of Le Petit Prince. I would like people to point out the mistakes I made and possible corrections, minor or major.
http://how-to-learn-any-language.com/sounds/index.asp?sound= 237 The biggest problem of all is that overall the accent is really funny, not native at all. Taiwanese? Probably, though I don't know if a Taiwanese French accent has ever been described. I'm looking forward to corrections and guidances in pronunciation in general - the nasals, the Rs, the EUs, the prosody...anything! I would appreciate your help very much, as I know it is important to establish a decent accent right from the outset, and I just hope that it's not too late. :) 1 person has voted this message useful | ||||||
| epingchris Triglot Senior Member Taiwan shih-chuan.blog.ntu. Joined 6971 days ago 273 posts - 284 votes 5 sounds Studies: Taiwanese, Mandarin*, English, FrenchB2 Studies: Japanese, German, Turkish | Message 2 of 17 20 January 2008 at 8:46am | IP Logged | |||||
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Uuh...anyone?
I'll perhaps start with some of the problems that I realized. 1. My "é"s aren't close enough and thus sound similar to "è". 2. My "ô"s aren't close enough and thus sound similar to "o". 3. My "t"s still sound too much like in English. Any opinions or suggestions would be welcomed. 1 person has voted this message useful | ||||||
 jeff_lindqvist Diglot Moderator SwedenRegistered users can see my Skype Name Joined 6852 days ago 4250 posts - 5711 votes Speaks: Swedish*, English Studies: German, Spanish, Russian, Dutch, Mandarin, Esperanto, Irish, French Personal Language Map | Message 3 of 17 20 January 2008 at 9:39am | IP Logged | |||||
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I don't know how long you have studied French, but apart from that I heard something else than "région" I think it was pretty good. That is, I can hear that you're not a native, but it sounds like French. I have heard thicker accents than yours from people in my class (over a decade ago). However, I'm not qualified to say what you should do to improve the things you're not content with.
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| Sprachprofi Nonaglot Senior Member Germany learnlangs.comRegistered users can see my Skype Name Joined 6413 days ago 2608 posts - 4866 votes Speaks: German*, English, French, Esperanto, Greek, Mandarin, Latin, Dutch, Italian Studies: Spanish, Arabic (Written), Swahili, Indonesian, Japanese, Modern Hebrew, Portuguese | Message 4 of 17 20 January 2008 at 10:09am | IP Logged | |||||
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Your accent is really good; it's hard to find anything to improve. I think most of your accent stems from not being "soft-spoken". That is, your stress and your /t/ sounds too strong for me and you might want to pronounce the nasals longer. Especially in "donc" you don't seem to pronounce the nasal o at all...
Also keep in mind that French has BOTH an open O and a closed O sound. The open O sound should appear in "desolé" for example, whereas the closed O appears in "radeau". Do you know IPA? It may help you add the finishing touches to your French pronunciation, as IPA was created with French in mind. Read what I wrote in the IPA thread. You may also want to practice with the short film http://www.dotsub.com/films/lhommequi/index.php . Set it to French subtitles and listen. The reader is a native French speaker with a real talent in reading this story; plus he speaks slowly most of the time. Imitate him. EDIT: if you want to learn IPA for French, I just found some of my course materials and I could teach you in a Skype session. Edited by Sprachprofi on 21 January 2008 at 2:07pm 1 person has voted this message useful | ||||||
| epingchris Triglot Senior Member Taiwan shih-chuan.blog.ntu. Joined 6971 days ago 273 posts - 284 votes 5 sounds Studies: Taiwanese, Mandarin*, English, FrenchB2 Studies: Japanese, German, Turkish | Message 5 of 17 23 January 2008 at 8:38am | IP Logged | |||||
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Thanks, both of you, for the encouragement and suggestions.
To jeff_lindqvist: I think I mistyped. It should have been "terre" instead of "région". lol To Sprachprofi: Yeah, I did realize the "o" problem later on. I think it is something I'll have to constantly keep in mind and work on; those two would merge into one when I'm not paying attention. I didn't quite understand what I should do for the nasals though. Are you saying I should lengthen them, or pause after them? The video looks interesting, the only minor drawback being that the man's voice is so vastly different from mine, I don't know if it would disturb me from imitating him......I have the audio version of "Le Petit Prince" right now and it's really good, but lots of time it speaks pretty fast. I have been practicing my pronunciation using IPA as an aid from the start, but I don't think I could advance further with it if I don't see the fully detailed transcription, with all the diacritics. I'm interested in your proposal, and in a matter of weeks, after I'm done with my present preoccupation (passing a big test), we can see how to make it work out. 1 person has voted this message useful | ||||||
| Sprachprofi Nonaglot Senior Member Germany learnlangs.comRegistered users can see my Skype Name Joined 6413 days ago 2608 posts - 4866 votes Speaks: German*, English, French, Esperanto, Greek, Mandarin, Latin, Dutch, Italian Studies: Spanish, Arabic (Written), Swahili, Indonesian, Japanese, Modern Hebrew, Portuguese | Message 6 of 17 24 January 2008 at 3:31pm | IP Logged | |||||
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I think you need to lengthen the nasals, let them take up more time, don't brush through them. As for open/closed O, IPA can tell you which one is correct.
My Skype name is RealJunesun, send me a message there when you have time. Or best e-mail me first, because I'm online a lot but not much on Skype. I don't feel like making a recording right now, but maybe when we're talking you can tell me what part of my Mandarin accent needs improving the most. 1 person has voted this message useful | ||||||
| tmesis Senior Member Mayotte Joined 6591 days ago 154 posts - 146 votes Speaks: English* | Message 7 of 17 29 January 2008 at 5:12pm | IP Logged | |||||
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- Edited by tmesis on 17 February 2008 at 2:06pm 1 person has voted this message useful | ||||||
| rodYon Pentaglot Newbie Croatia Joined 6091 days ago 38 posts - 38 votes 1 sounds Speaks: Serbian, Croatian*, Latin, French, English Studies: Italian | Message 8 of 17 29 January 2008 at 6:57pm | IP Logged | |||||
yes. i have an impression that all of the sounds "rested in your mouth", you should move your point of articulation more towards the lips, and soften the "u" (f.ex. "une", "plus", "sur", "surprise"), but other than that it's very good. for a beginner, that is. keep up the good work. other than pronounciation guides, why not watch a movie with a transcript or with good subtitles in french.
hm. i wouldn't agree completely. maybe i would if there was more than just one nasal o in the text- because donc in "donc encore" is slightly denasalised by obligatory liason (encore commencing with a vowel), and if you pay attention, you can clearly hear that he heard that in the text and repeated it properly, all of his other words and word combinations don't have such an intonation. 1 person has voted this message useful |
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