This is the game I play when I'm alone in my car : echoing the native speakers and repeating during the "Listen and Repeat" parts. This is really, really, really fun. (For me, at least.)
MP3 Recording : original speaker followed by "Listen and Repeat" recording
Photo of the paragraph with English translation
Monday, December 14, 2015
French Pronunciation : the S sound (There are two of them in French.)
The French "S" is like the French "G" : it has two different sounds and you sometimes see both "S" sounds in the same word!
This recording will help you ssssssmooth out your S's.
As in the other recordings, I put 2.5 seconds of silence before and after each word. You can test yourself by saying the word before I do or practice repeating what I just said. Enjoy!
PDF sheet for the exercise : master both "S" sounds
MP3 recording for the exercise : master both "S" sounds
This recording will help you ssssssmooth out your S's.
As in the other recordings, I put 2.5 seconds of silence before and after each word. You can test yourself by saying the word before I do or practice repeating what I just said. Enjoy!
PDF sheet for the exercise : master both "S" sounds
MP3 recording for the exercise : master both "S" sounds
French Pronunciation exercise : master both "G" sounds
A student told me that the G sound was confusing her.
This recording will help you get it right.
As in the other recordings, I put 2.5 seconds of silence before and after each word. You can test yourself by saying the word before I do or practice repeating what I just said. Enjoy!
PDF sheet for the exercise : master both "G" sounds
MP3 recording for the exercise : master both "G" sounds
This recording will help you get it right.
As in the other recordings, I put 2.5 seconds of silence before and after each word. You can test yourself by saying the word before I do or practice repeating what I just said. Enjoy!
PDF sheet for the exercise : master both "G" sounds
MP3 recording for the exercise : master both "G" sounds
French Pronunciation exercise : master both "G" sounds
A student told me that the G sound was confusing her.
This recording will help you get it right.
As in the other recordings, I put 2.5 seconds of silence before and after each word. You can test yourself by saying the word before I do or practice repeating what I just said. Enjoy!
PDF sheet for the exercise : master both "G" sounds
MP3 recording for the exercise : master both "G" sounds
This recording will help you get it right.
As in the other recordings, I put 2.5 seconds of silence before and after each word. You can test yourself by saying the word before I do or practice repeating what I just said. Enjoy!
PDF sheet for the exercise : master both "G" sounds
MP3 recording for the exercise : master both "G" sounds
French pronunciation : sound snippets of a French person dropping her "ne"s
I have a pronunciation student who didn't know that the French dropped the first part of their negations.
That made me remember that I too was in the dark until someone clued me in. So I made this little recording to give her some examples. I hope you enjoy it!
You'll need both files : the recording and the pdf.
PDF sheet : hear examples of dropped "ne"s in spoken French
!!! The recording below is large : for best results, right click, then "Save Target As..." (So, you'll download first, then listen by double-clicking on the file.)
MP3 recording : hear examples of dropped "ne"s in spoken Frenchs
That made me remember that I too was in the dark until someone clued me in. So I made this little recording to give her some examples. I hope you enjoy it!
You'll need both files : the recording and the pdf.
PDF sheet : hear examples of dropped "ne"s in spoken French
!!! The recording below is large : for best results, right click, then "Save Target As..." (So, you'll download first, then listen by double-clicking on the file.)
MP3 recording : hear examples of dropped "ne"s in spoken Frenchs
French Pronunciation : "é" vs "e"
Today's printout and recording will help you master the difference between
MP3 recording for the exercise : "e" vs. "é"s
- "é" (sounds like the "a" in the English "late")
and - "e" (sounds like the "e" in the English "the")
MP3 recording for the exercise : "e" vs. "é"s
Some words exist just to tell you, "Your French Pronunciation is not yet perfect."
Certain words are like barometers for our French pronunciation. Here we are, living in France, working here, talking to our co-workers when we suddenly trip over an un-pronounceable word like "énergie" ou "sécurité." Heck, you can't even talk about getting bread without saying "boulangerie", right ?
This is annoying because the fact that you are a foreigner again becomes part of the situation. A moment ago, you were just another neighbor, just another co-worker and now you are "l'étranger" (the foreigner, the American, the Australian, etc.) because you have this word that you can't pronounce. You have to slow down and pronounce it very carefully while the person listening to you politely waits. You are the outsider again. That is fine, but it is annoying, especially if you have been speaking French for years. After all, if you still can't speak like a native, this situation is likely to go on for as long as you live here. You may even retire here and spend your last years still struggling to speak this language. What a pain in the derrière!
Every person who has gotten reasonably fluent in a foreign language has had this problem. You spend most of the day oblivious to your accent. You sound great to you! You have no idea that everyone around you hears a foreign accent whenever you open your mouth to speak. And then you get this glaring reminder that, no, your French is not perfect.
I see this problem differently. These hard words are the canary in the coal mine signaling me to wake up! If there is a word in French I can't pronounce, it is surely because my "mouth position" (for lack of a better term) is still not perfect.
When I trip upon a word, I say to myself, "Cool - a new hard word! I need to experiment with it later and see what I learn about the way my tongue and lips need to move in order to pronounce it with ease." Then I experiment until I can pronounce that word without problems. And once I can do that, I need to use that mouth position for all of the rest of my French.
And then comes the payoff: with what I've just learned thanks to that new hard word, the rest of my French sounds that much better.
I have been making a list of French words that are...
a) extremely hard for English speakers to pronounce
b) give us clues to the way forward in our pronunciation.
This is annoying because the fact that you are a foreigner again becomes part of the situation. A moment ago, you were just another neighbor, just another co-worker and now you are "l'étranger" (the foreigner, the American, the Australian, etc.) because you have this word that you can't pronounce. You have to slow down and pronounce it very carefully while the person listening to you politely waits. You are the outsider again. That is fine, but it is annoying, especially if you have been speaking French for years. After all, if you still can't speak like a native, this situation is likely to go on for as long as you live here. You may even retire here and spend your last years still struggling to speak this language. What a pain in the derrière!
Every person who has gotten reasonably fluent in a foreign language has had this problem. You spend most of the day oblivious to your accent. You sound great to you! You have no idea that everyone around you hears a foreign accent whenever you open your mouth to speak. And then you get this glaring reminder that, no, your French is not perfect.
I see this problem differently. These hard words are the canary in the coal mine signaling me to wake up! If there is a word in French I can't pronounce, it is surely because my "mouth position" (for lack of a better term) is still not perfect.
When I trip upon a word, I say to myself, "Cool - a new hard word! I need to experiment with it later and see what I learn about the way my tongue and lips need to move in order to pronounce it with ease." Then I experiment until I can pronounce that word without problems. And once I can do that, I need to use that mouth position for all of the rest of my French.
And then comes the payoff: with what I've just learned thanks to that new hard word, the rest of my French sounds that much better.
I have been making a list of French words that are...
a) extremely hard for English speakers to pronounce
b) give us clues to the way forward in our pronunciation.
French Pronunciation exercise : master the "eu" sound in "Euro"
The recording is less than 4 minutes long and ends with a fantastic (in my humble estimation) trick for pronouncing "Euro" correctly.
PDF sheet for the exercise : the "eu" sound
MP3 recording of the words on the sheet for the exercise
PDF sheet for the exercise : the "eu" sound
MP3 recording of the words on the sheet for the exercise
French Pronunciation Exercise : "eu" vs "u."
You'll need the PDF and the MP3. I put 2.5 seconds of silence before and after each word, so you can use it both ways : either test yourself by saying the word before I do or practice repeating what I just said. Enjoy!
PDF sheet for the exercise : eu vs u
MP3 recording of the words on the sheet for the exercise
PDF sheet for the exercise : eu vs u
MP3 recording of the words on the sheet for the exercise
French Pronunciation exercise : er vs ere
Here is a recording to help you with "er" and "ere" at the end or words.
Be careful : I put some exceptions at the very end of the page. Listen carefully to the recording to hear the difference.
PDF sheet for the exercise : er vs ere
MP3 recording of the words on the sheet for the exercise
Be careful : I put some exceptions at the very end of the page. Listen carefully to the recording to hear the difference.
PDF sheet for the exercise : er vs ere
MP3 recording of the words on the sheet for the exercise
Recognizing "c'est-à-dire" in conversational French
Sometimes, you only hear "s-ta-dire." In this sample, you hear the dire really well and your brain has to fill in the rest, based on context. Click here to get the recording and the transcript so you can follow along.
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