L’accent tonique (French Phonetics III) Posted by Elizabeth Schmermund on Mar 23, 2015
Hello everyone! Today, as promised, we will be going over l’accent tonique, or the tonic accent, which has to do with stressing a particular word in a sentence for emphasis. As you’ve read in the previous posts in this series on French phonetics, in French you don’t stress individual words to emphasize them. Rather, word…
Celebrate French And Tell Me Ten Words! Posted by John Bauer on Mar 18, 2015
While listening to RFI, I learned that this week is la semaine de la langue française (French Language Week) as part of the celebration for la journée de la francophonie (Francophonie Day) on March 20th. On l’émission (the show) they talked about one of the fun events going, Dis-moi dix mots (Tell me ten words)…
Lève ton verre: French Drinking Songs Posted by Josh Dougherty on Mar 17, 2015
Tonight, many people around the world are partaking in a bit of drinking to celebrate St. Patrick’s Day. The French aren’t an exception. A few weeks ago, John taught you how to toast in French. Today we’re going to learn something just as important: la chanson paillarde or la chanson à boire (drinking song). There…
French Phonetics (Part II) Posted by Elizabeth Schmermund on Mar 16, 2015
Last week, we talked about how stressing syllables in French is different from the stresses you put on certain syllables in English. This week, we will continue our discussion of la phonétique with l’intonation. Intonation is not very complicated in French because it follows French accentuation. Intonation refers to the “melody” of a language…
Today’s Post is Brought to You by the Letter….H! Posted by Josh Dougherty on Mar 12, 2015
The letter H in French is, of course, only one letter, but it can cause a problem in speaking and spelling if you’re not familiar with the concepts of h aspiré (aspirated H) and h muet (silent H). Despite the name ‘silent H,’ both Hs are silent: you never pronounce an H in French*. Hurray…
French Knock Knock Jokes Posted by John Bauer on Mar 11, 2015
Humor doesn’t always traduire (translate) well. What’s funny in one culture is often not that funny in another culture. Just imagine trying to explain why “to get to the other side” is une chute drôle (a funny punchline) to someone who’s never heard the famous chicken joke. En même temps, (at the same time) un…
An Introduction to French Phonetics Posted by Elizabeth Schmermund on Mar 9, 2015
One of the hardest things for advanced French language learners to grasp is how to sound like a native speaker. Your accent largely depends on the age at which you first learned a language. But what can be even trickier than working on the perfect pronunciation of each word is mastering the rhythm of the…