Is French pronunciation hard to master?

Guest   Mon Jul 16, 2007 11:35 pm GMT
>>I have heard Germans speak in German and in English, of course. I know that you have some sort of connection to German, but I'm not sure what the connection is (family, school, friends or other)... I am going to guess and hope that you have heard different kinds of German accents in English. I've heard Alsatian, Berliner and other accents. Some sound like singing to me because of the intonation, at least one accent sounded like buzzing to me in English. That's not my area. Of course, some Germans sound like native speakers of English.<<

Aside from the area I live having formerly been German-speaking (and having had relatives, now deceased, who spoke German), my real connection to German has primarily just been having known a number of native German-speakers over the years here in Wisconsin (all of whom were from Germany except this one girl who was born to German parents here) more than anything else. Of course, there having been non-negligible cultural influence here from German-speaking areas historically as well is a factor, even though such is far weaker these days than it was in the past.

I am not familiar with different German accents in English, largely almost all of these individuals have had relatively slight accents in English (except for one coworker of mine who speaks really marked RP without any noticable trace of a German accent (to me at least) and the aforementioned girl, who for all practical purposes lost her English after she moved away from the US) and rarely spoke German (at least in the presence of English-speakers; said girl almost certainly spoke German with the rest of her family). The fact that until relatively recently I knew basically nothing about German dialects does not help either.

>>BTW, Travis, what does "German's" with the apostrophe mean? Are you really Travis?<<

That was just a typo.
Travis   Mon Jul 16, 2007 11:36 pm GMT
That was me above.
Guest   Thu Aug 16, 2007 5:18 pm GMT
Is there a difference between the pronunciation of "il" and "ils", "rue" and "rues"?
Guest   Thu Aug 16, 2007 5:40 pm GMT
no
greg   Thu Aug 16, 2007 8:05 pm GMT
Guest : « Is there a difference between the pronunciation of "il" and "ils", "rue" and "rues"? »

Oui et non. Tout dépend du contexte = les types de mots séquencés.

<il a fait> → /ilafe/ → <er hat getan>
<ils ont fait> → /ilzÕfe/ → <sie haben getan>
Dans ce contexte (pronom + auxilaire débutant par une voyelle), /il/ & /ilz/ s'opposent car la liaison est obligatoire.
Attention :
/ilÕfe/ → <ils l'ont fait> → <sie haben es getan>
Dans ce contexte (pronom + mot débutant par une consonne, ici le COD <l'>), /il/ est invariable car la liaison est interdite : */ilzlÕfe/ est impossible.


<rue étroite> → /RyetRwat/ → <enge Straße>
<rues étroites> → /RyetRwat/ → <enge Straßen>
<rues étroites> → /RyzetRwat/ → <enge Straßen>
Dans ce contexte (nom + adjectif débutant par une voyelle), /Ry/ est soit invariable, soit opposable à /Ryz/ car la liaison est facultative.
Guest°   Thu Aug 16, 2007 9:02 pm GMT
Guest, greg answered in French because this is a thread concerning French pronunciation. I am a beginner at French, yet I understood his explanation quite well. Take your dirty mouth elsewhere, you are not welocomed here.

Oprima dos para recibir una lección de lógica.
Guest   Thu Aug 16, 2007 9:53 pm GMT
It depends on what your native language is. For a German, it's probably easier than those two; for an Italian, harder.

WHAT???? Is French more difficult to pronounce for an Italian than for a German? DO you live on Mars?
Italian and French are LATIN languages
Guest   Fri Aug 17, 2007 12:45 am GMT
''Italians, however have to learn these nasal vowels and all the front rounded vowels, and the uvular /r/.''

Remember that uvular r is used in some Italian dialects (Turin dialect, Val d'Aosta dialects) and by some upper class snob women all around Italy.
Guest   Fri Aug 17, 2007 1:50 am GMT
The "dialect" of Val d'Aoste is not Italian at all. It's French.
Just as French as the Corsican dialect is Italian.
IHS   Fri Aug 17, 2007 2:31 am GMT
<< Oprima dos para recibir una lección de lógica. >>

Take your mouth full of shit elsewhere, you nad your Spanish language are are not welcome here. It's only tou who insist the Spanish language to others who abhor it.
Guest°   Fri Aug 17, 2007 2:34 am GMT
I replied to a comment made by a deleted Guest who answered in Spanish, badmouthing French. Sorry, but you need to press "2" too.
SJF   Fri Aug 17, 2007 5:47 am GMT
a little bit harder than Deutsch and English....
Ouest   Fri Aug 17, 2007 10:29 am GMT
Since French stems from a mixture of Latin and German (especially the pronunciation was heavily "Germanized" during the dark and middle ages), it is relatively easy to speak French for Swedes, English, Danes, Germans etc.. Ancient French was specially designed for the Germanic invaders' need to communicate in the conquered territories. Only the centralistic efforts to "re-Latinize" French since the Renaissance have built some artificial obstacles since then, like the tricky historicizing spelling or the Parisian way of pronunciation and use of superfluous and extra-sophisticated vocabulary (like Greg's for example ;-).
TRR   Fri Aug 17, 2007 11:46 am GMT
The only Romance Languages that were not re-Latinized, and remained pure were Italian, Spanish, and Portuguese. French, and Romanian were butchered, adulterated, and re-pasted back together. I wouldn't call them true Romance languages.
Guest   Fri Aug 17, 2007 12:41 pm GMT
<< The only Romance Languages that were not re-Latinized, and remained pure were Italian, Spanish, and Portuguese. French, and Romanian were butchered, adulterated, and re-pasted back together. I wouldn't call them true Romance languages. >>

Yeah, you can say that. But remember that Spanish and Portuguese are so much diluted with Arabic influences and therefore they are more or less Latin than French or Romanian.

Perhaps as a compromise we may classify French as Romance-Teutonic/Germanic, Romanian as Romance-Slavic, and Spanish and Portuguese as Romance-Arabic.