{"id":30924,"date":"2018-11-28T20:12:15","date_gmt":"2018-11-28T19:12:15","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/blogs.transparent.com\/french\/?p=30924"},"modified":"2018-12-05T19:25:12","modified_gmt":"2018-12-05T18:25:12","slug":"uncle-fingernail-mispronouncing-oncle-and-delivering-good-news","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/blogs.transparent.com\/french\/uncle-fingernail-mispronouncing-oncle-and-delivering-good-news\/","title":{"rendered":"Uncle Fingernail – Mispronouncing Oncle And Delivering Good News"},"content":{"rendered":"

I received some very good news earlier this week! Ma petite s\u0153ur<\/a><\/strong> (my little sister) had a child and added to our family!<\/p>\n

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Image<\/a> from Pixabay. Licensed under CC0.<\/p><\/div>\n

All the messages about ma petite soeur<\/strong> were flooding in from ma famille<\/strong> (my family) as she was taken to the hospital, getting ready to become une m\u00e8re<\/a><\/strong> (a mother). Apr\u00e8s l’accouchement<\/strong> (after giving birth), there was another wave of messages as pictures or la m\u00e8re et le p\u00e8re<\/a><\/strong> (the mother and father) with le b\u00e9b\u00e9<\/strong> (the baby) cascaded onto my phone.<\/p>\n

Ma m\u00e8re<\/strong> was especially excited to become une m\u00e9m\u00e8re<\/a><\/strong> (a granny) and wants us all to use le mot fran\u00e7ais<\/strong> (the French word)! It’s a tradition that was brought over from le Qu\u00e9bec<\/a><\/strong>, where our family comes from on my mother’s side.<\/p>\n

Le lendemain<\/strong> (the next day), I wanted to share the news with mon coll\u00e8gue<\/strong><\/a> (my coworker) and started what I thought would be an simple conversation.<\/p>\n

Salut \u00e7a va ?<\/strong>
\n\u00c7a va et toi ?<\/strong>
\nJe vais tr\u00e8s bien ce matin !<\/strong>
\nQu’est-ce qu’il y a ?<\/strong>
\nJe suis devenu un ongle<\/em> hier soir !<\/strong>
\nUn quoi ?<\/strong>
\nUn ongle<\/em>…<\/strong>
\nUn ongle ?<\/strong>
\nEuh… Ma petite s\u0153ur a accouch\u00e9…<\/strong>
\nAh oui un oncle ! F\u00e9licitations !<\/strong>
\nTu pensais que j’ai dit quoi ?<\/strong>
\nJ’ai entendu un ongle et je me demandais qu’est-ce que tu voulais dire !<\/strong><\/p>\n

Hi how are you?<\/em>
\nI’m fine and you?<\/em>
\nI’m doing great this morning!<\/em>
\nWhat’s up?<\/em>
\nI became a fingernail last night!<\/em>
\nA what?<\/em>
\nA fingernail…<\/em>
\nA fingernail?<\/em>
\nUh… My little sister gave birth…<\/em>
\nAh yes an uncle! Congratulations!<\/em>
\nWhat did you think I said?<\/em>
\nI heard a fingernail and I was wondering what you wanted to say!<\/em><\/p><\/blockquote>\n

What started as a simple conversation over morning coffee<\/a> quickly turned into a French lesson.<\/p>\n

The problem came from mon accent<\/strong><\/a> (my accent) and the difficultly I have pronouncing certain French words, in this case oncle<\/strong><\/em>. The nasal vowel<\/a> of the on<\/strong><\/em> made me mispronounce the sound that follows, turning the c<\/strong><\/em> sound in oncle<\/strong> <\/em>into a g<\/strong><\/em> sound.<\/p>\n

Mixing up the sounds resulted in some very strange mistakes<\/a>. While I wanted to say I became an uncle<\/em>, what mon coll\u00e8gue<\/strong> heard was either:<\/p>\n

Je suis devenu un ongle !<\/strong>
\nI became a fingernail!<\/em><\/p><\/blockquote>\n

or<\/p>\n

Je suis devenu un onglet !<\/strong>
\nI became a tab!<\/em><\/p><\/blockquote>\n

Ongle<\/strong> <\/em>and onglet<\/strong> <\/em>are pronounced sligtl differently, but I can imagine un francophone<\/strong> (a French speaker) hearing either one coming out of my mouth and neither of them have anything to do with being un <\/strong>oncle<\/strong><\/em>. What were similar sounding words to me made it impossible for mon coll\u00e8gue<\/strong><\/a> to understand what I wanted to say.<\/p>\n

In the end I was able to pass on the good news and learned a valuable lesson in correctly pronouncing the word oncle<\/strong><\/em>.<\/p>\n

I can only hope my mistake<\/a> leads to ma nouvelle ni\u00e8ce<\/strong> (my new niece) having perfect pronunciation in every language she speaks! At the very least, I hope she doesn’t start calling me Uncle Fingernail<\/em>.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"\"\"

I received some very good news earlier this week! Ma petite s\u0153ur (my little sister) had a child and added to our family! All the messages about ma petite soeur were flooding in from ma famille (my family) as she was taken to the hospital, getting ready to become une m\u00e8re (a mother). Apr\u00e8s l’accouchement…<\/p>\n

Continue Reading<\/a><\/p>","protected":false},"author":124,"featured_media":30925,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"content-type":""},"categories":[13],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-30924","post","type-post","status-publish","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-vocabulary"],"aioseo_notices":[],"aioseo_head":"\n\t\t\n\t\n\t\n\t\n\t\n\t\n\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t