Easy French Pronunciation

From LoveToKnow French

There really isn't any such thing as easy French pronunciation, unfortunately. One of the most challenging things about learning the French language is pronouncing the words correctly with the proper accent.

French Pronunciation Tips for Easier Learning

Practice is essential. Listening to and practicing the pronunciation of vowel sounds in particular can make speaking easier, and daily pronunciation practice is recommended. Online audio clips can be a great place to start, simply listen, and repeat. Many websites, such as Jump Gate.com's French Pronunciation include audio clips of vowel sounds, vowel combinations, and lists or words these vowels commonly appear in. Remembering the mostly likely words these sounds will be seen in can also help make sounding out French words a bit simpler.

Another tip or making pronunciation easier is to look at the way the mouth forms the sounds when French words are spoken. This can be done by observing someone speaking in French, or studying French videos. You can even find free French videos online at sites such as You Tube.

Americans and native English speakers typically stress one particular syllable in a word more than the others. In French, however, the stress is more evenly spread out across the word, with a slight stress typically on the last full syllable of a word.

The Easiest French Words and Sounds

Clearly there will be some French words that are easier to pronounce than others. Two factors make for easy French pronunciation with respect to English speakers. First are cognates or words that have recognizable English counterparts. Second are words that are phonetic, meaning they sound exactly as they are spelled. Usually these two factors are closely related.

Cognates

There are lots of French vocabulary words that look exactly like English words. These are often words that were French in origin and then were adopted by the English language. It also goes the other way around, English words that are frenchified. Usually they do not sound exactly the same, but often they are close enough that they are easily pronounceable. For example:

These words started as French words, but they are familiar to English speakers:
- café (ca-fay)
- ballet (ba-lay)
- duvet (doo-vay)
- agile (ah-geel)
- boutique (boo-teek)
- bureau (bee-ro)
- chef (shef) which can also mean chief

These words started as English words and are now used in French:
- camping (cam-ping) as in faire du camping: to go camping
- shopping (shop-ping) as in faire du shopping: to go shopping
- sandwich (sand-weech)
- super (soo-pare)

These words are just plain cognates:
- adorable (a-dor-a-bleh)
- certain (sur-tahn), nasal
- cinéma (see-nay-ma)
- légal (lay-gal)
- permanent (per-ma-nont), nasal
- restaurante (re-stor-ahnt), nasal
- télévision (tel-ay-vee-see-ohn), nasal
- téléphone (tel-ay-fone)
- date (daht)
- minute (min-oot)
- photo (foe-toe)
- soda (soe-da)

In order to learn and practice the nasal sound, pinch the nose together with thumb and forefinger and pronounce the word.

Easier Phonetic French Words

These words are so close to being English cognates that they are easy to pronounce. Sometimes they mean the same thing, but sometimes they are false cognates and have a different meaning.

These words look and sound very similar to their English counterparts and have the same meanings:
- américain (a-may-ree-cahn), nasal - means American
- banque (bahnk) - means bank
- docteur (dok-tur) - means doctor
- supermarché (soo-pare-mar-shay) means supermarket
- bleu (blehr) - meaning blue
- famille (fa-mee-yah) - means family
- papier (pa-pee-yeh) - means paper
- musique (moo-seek) - means music

Faux amis or false cognates look like English words but have different meanings:
- librairie (lee-brayr-ree) means bookstore not library
- crayon (cray-ohn) nasal, means pencil not crayon
- attendre (a-ton-dreh), means to wait not 'to attend'
- rester (rest-ay), means to stay not 'to rest'
- assister(a-sist-ay), means to attend not 'to assist'

Easy French Pronunciation By Region

Since French is widely spoken, there are differences in the difficulty of pronunciation depending upon locale.

In France

By far the most difficult and particular pronunciation happens in Paris, where people speak very quickly, with lots of nasal emphasis, and by dropping letters and connecting words, also known as liason and élision. Tours is said to have the most neutral, non-accented French in all of France.

Different regions in France may incorporate their old ancient languages with Celtic, Gaelic and even German influences. For example, in Alsace-Lorraine, the region which borders Germany, the accent and pronunciation has a decidedly German influence and in some instances may seem easier given the similarities between German and English.

Outside of France

In general the French spoken in the following regions is easier to pronounce because the language is spoken more slowly. In the North American regions, the contact with English has been so constant that it has somewhat influenced the accent so that there is less nasality than in Parisian French. There is also less liason/élision. Some of these regions include: