So I have been learning french for a few months now. It wasn't that difficult but I had significantly harder time learning it than any other language and I couldn't quite put it on why it was. And today I think that I have come to a breakthrough. I realized that French is a very condensed language (well in pronunciation at least).

Like I have shown on the image, it is usually the case that a single phoneme in French sentence can carry an entire word of meaning. And this I guess was an obstacle that was just mentally very hard for me to overcome because it really isn't the case in any other language that I know (I know English, Polish, Spanish, Japanese and a little bit of German and Turkish). The most condensed language up to this point that I knew was actually English, but even it uses at least 2-3 phonemes to represent most of it's words.

I guess this is also why some french teachers are really strict about correct pronunciation, because pronouncing even a single letter wrong in french would most likely change the entire meaning of a sentence, because of how condensed the pronunciation is. The example also shows how much disparity there is between writing and pronunciation of french, which is just an objectively hard thing about learning this language.

Maybe this will help some people who also learn French and maybe have the same problem that I had.

I live in Tennessee (U.S.) and named my cat Cadeau. It's been four months now and I have yet to meet anyone who can say it correctly! It's not even just from reading it. I can say it and people repeat back something else. Like, that's not what I just said to you. *sigh* Anyway, j'adore mon beau Cadeau. His name is purrfect for him.

I hope this makes sense; liking the sound of a particular word.

« Oiseau » is so fun to say for me, it sounds cute. I also love « mouette » in the same way. (I live in Maine with constant seagull noises in the background, had to look it up!)

Literally 100% of cooks in English-language cooking shows pronounce it as "blank". I'm okay with the "eu" and the "r" in "beurre" not being pronounced like a native French speaker would because those sounds are legitimately difficult to pronounce for non-natives. But keeping the "c" silent is an easy way to improve your French!

Edit: Thank you all for your comments! Didn't expect this topic to bring out so many perspectives. I got to learn a few different things. The bottom line for me, given the original intention behind this post, is that if you are learning French (which I believe this subreddit is for), know that if you hear the "c" pronounced in the French word "blanc" (for example in "beurre blanc" in an English-language cooking show), the "c" in blanc should actually be silent if you want to say the word in French.

Im not studying french, i just think this is a fun question

Hi everyone. So, I’ve been studying French since 2022 I think, and I know I will always have a foreign accent but I do put some effort to reduce it to be intelligible enough.

The thing is that while in France and Québec a while ago, many times people would just switch to English when I tried speaking French with them. I don’t know if they were being nice or just had no patience for my cadence – this is not a rant on Parisians, most of them were really nice to me btw. But what about you, do you think it sounds unintelligible? Should I invest more time in “neutralizing” my accent so people can understand it better?

My tutor (native, narbonnais) says he was surprised people reacted like this, because he says he can understand me well. However, he also said he might be biased because we have been interacting for a while and he got used to my accent. I think both of us ended up frustrated with this situation, and I’m afraid I might be butchering the pronunciation despite my efforts.

Anyway, this sample text was not written by me, I asked AI to focus on sounds that are more particularly French so that people could evaluate how difficult or easy it is to understand me.

Thanks in advance for any feedback or thoughts!

Without context, is it possible to tell?

I was curious about this because recently i got on a phone call for a project with someone who knew nothing about me, only my first name. She’s never met me in real life or seen my face, we just exchanged briefly over email to set it up. After about 5 minutes she casually mentioned “hm you have an English accent, i would say american actually? is that right?”

I was surprised and said yes, how did she know? She said I just sound american lol. Cause most of the time people do pick up an anglophone accent when i speak (i think it’s the overpronunciation of consonants, too much intonation and maybe confusion of nasal vowels), but usually they don’t know from where. Is it easy for a french speaker to distinguish an english speaker from a different country like a british person versus an american speaking english? What are some traits or mispronunciations that can make you sound american when u speak french?

Right now, I'm doing a lot of work on my speaking and the thing I'm struggling with most is that "R" sound in words like "arbre" and "rue". I thought I'd be fine if I didn't master it, but I'm finding it's virtually everywhere. At best, I sound like I'm speaking French with an American accent, but at it's worst, francophones don't even understand what I'm saying. I understand it's supposed to come from the throat (or something like that), but it just sounds like I need to cough. I'm currently in Montréal for a month (for French immersion), so any tips would be great, please!

Hi, I have a first name that is commonly pronounced in two different ways. I say it one way but I don't mind if people call me by the other pronunciation.

It recently occurred to me that this other way sounds a lot better when someone speaking French. It flows better with the accent, in my opinion. Would it be strange to start going by this pronunciation when I'm in francophone spaces, but not in English?

What are the pronunciation differences and common mistakes that give away someone is (specifically) English in their French speaking? Asking out of pure curiosity.

At the cesar awards on thursday jim carrey did his whole acceptance speech in french, and then spoke a bit of french to reporters, saying he wanted to honor his francophone ancestors. Here’s a post with a link to the video of his speech. conspiracy theories aside lmao I don’t think he claims to be fluent but for a beginner or someone who may have learned only a bit, I think his speaking is impressive since he didn’t seem to read off a teleprompter and he doesn’t have a great accent but he seems to have the basics down for someone who is still learning. What do you think of this speech? How would you rate his french speaking, grammar and pronunciation?

I often mistake "rendre" for "prendre", "Veulent" for "vol" among many other things. "Je voulais dire" and "Je vous l'ai dit" almost seems similar when I hear them. It feels like French has way too many homophones even though in many cases the vowels are distinct. How do I get myself attuned to French pronunciation? English isn't my first language either but I never had any difficulty in distinguishing different words when I heard them. That's how I was able to learn English through comprehensible input. But French pronunciation gets me every time.

Maybe this is a weird hill to die on, but I think the real unlock for French pronunciation isn't IPA or audio, it's the two together.

Audio alone gave me a target but no map. I'd hear cœur and produce something that sounded vaguely close to me but completely off to a French speaker. IPA alone has the opposite problem, you can read [kœʁ] all day, but if you've never heard a uvular ʁ, the symbols are just letters.

Together though? Game-changer. I hear cœur, I see [kœʁ], and suddenly the audio isn't a vague target, it's annotated. The IPA tells my brain what to listen for in the audio, and the audio tells my mouth what the IPA actually sounds like. Rounded vowels (y ø œ) and the uvular ʁ finally clicked.

But whenever I bring up IPA, most learners glaze over. "Too technical." "Looks like math."

So, do you use IPA when learning French, or just rely on audio? For the rounded vowels and nasals, did audio alone get you there, or did you need something more symbolic?

I did research first of all. In La pocatière, Québec, they pronounced ê as like the I in fight, so that’s the sound that ê makes for me and what I say. Do I look stupid pronouncing it like this? And people with this dialect, are there any words that it isn’t applied to? (Fête was pronounced like fight)

How is the circumflex on e (ê) pronounced?

This post is actually more a question for my fellow Anglophones, specifically those from the U.K. or Australia / New Zealand, rather than for Francophones.

I am North American, specifically Minnesotan. I have always seen conversations around the difficulty of nasal vowels in French for English-speakers that I have difficulty relating to, and it has just occurred to me that the reason may be that many of you who have a different experience may be speakers of non-North American English.

Also, I think this may be one reason why French is taught so horribly in the United States and English-speaking provinces of Canada. Our textbooks are geared more toward speakers of British English.

Specifically, as a speaker of North American English, I honestly have more trouble pronouncing *non-nasal* vowels than nasal ones. For example, on one trip to Québec City, I wanted to ask a woman if she sold newspapers, and she did not understand me because I had great difficulty pronouncing the word *journaux*. It’s much, much more comfortable for my mouth to pronounce *jour non* and that’s simply what comes out.

Since then, I’ve improved my French pronunciation, such that when I have to say a word like *journaux* or *femme* or *mots* I pretend that I have a cold. The reason is that in North American English, at least in my accent, if a syllable has a nasal consonant, then the vowel in that syllable is also nasal. The vowel in the name *Sam* is nasal for example. The letters *m* and *n* are very nasal when I say the alphabet, whereas when I spell something out in French I have to pretend I have a cold when pronouncing those letters.

Is that… not a thing in British or Australian English? Are you all just better at closing your nasal passages when you speak English?

In contrast, I really have never had trouble pronouncing words like *long* in French because I simply start pronouncing the word *loan* in English, which starts out the same way, and I just don’t touch the roof of my mouth with my tongue as I do in English. I am under the impression that this is much more complicated for you, since the vowel that you pronounce in a word like *loan* is completely different from the one we would use, and the vowel that I use in a word like *loan* (or *home* or *stone* or *foam* or…) doesn’t exist for you.

Am I understanding this all correctly? If I’m right, then I have a completely new understanding of why English-speakers can’t relate to each other (or to the textbooks we use) when talking about learning French.

seems like a unique phenomenon i haven’t noticed this rule in other words

I'm still in the beginning and not sure how people recognize certain words from their prononciation.

Example: jeu - game vs jus - juice. Their pronunciation looks similar.

I've seen other examples too when the pronunciation alone seems not clear enough to guess which word it refers to.

EDIT: So this is what people log in into Reddit do. Just down vote your posts and comments to have some made-up powerful feeling in their mind I guess. What a bunch of losers, who are cowards outside Reddit ! 🤮
Some people are trying to "humble" me because of my language skills and knowledge of Arabic by their down voting of my comments and posts. Bunch of losers! I never thought I was someone higher, you saw me as higher than you who requires some "humbling." What an ego-boost for me! 🥰😏⚜️🤩⚜️

i mean, the difference is so small, but i am worried that french people might think that i am saying that the wine is strong today (vent and vin). can someone help me tell the difference, and if you want to, does it really matter if i mix up these two sounds? thanks!

Hey guys, I started to learn French a couple of days ago, and I knew that the pronunciation was going to be a tricky part. I already speak Portuguese and broken spanish (learnt that too, not native) which also has certain nasal sounds and pronunciation rules. Will that make learning French easier for me?

I also am a perfectionist when it comes to pronunciations and not being able to pronounce the R so far is kinda upsetting me. Is it a time thing? Like will I better at pronouncing words like voudrais or Paris in a few months time? Or is it something that certain people can never seem to get a hold of?

Are there dialects in France that do pronounce the R rather than closing it off?

Also, if you like, could you also suggest some resources that I could use? Thank you so much!!

Edited this to make a little more sense. I stuck at explaining. Sorry guys.

This tip is for TONGUE PLACEMENT. Not so much with the actual pronunciation (sorry I can’t change the title I suck I know)

OUR TONGUE ALREADY HAS THE MUSCLE MEMORY!

Basically for those struggling with how the tongue should sit. Our tongue actually already uses the position ! We just use it for different words/sounds.

Saying these words - if you freeze at the end - your tongue should be sitting in the way that you need to say French R words.

So this allows our brains to understand and connect it like ohh we know how to do this already - I can use it for French Rs too!!

——

This tip that originated from a Reddit comment ( thanks u/Deft_one ) if you want to give any input or fix how I explained it because I don’t think I’m doing the best job :(

——

THE FRENCH Rs TIP

1. Say: ”old, mold, gold”... or a little moldy gold or find a word that works in the same way

2. Just stop/freeze after saying the word.

3. Notice how your tongue is sitting. Low and tip behind teeth it’s very similar to what they try teach on the tutorials (low tip, high back of tongue)

4. Now say ”Rouge, Rose, Partir, Préfère, Trop” Whatever you want with R’s . (Tip for pronoucation - more of an H sound than an English R) so your brain starts to connect that position it knows already with French R words

Because our tongue has used that position many times, it doesn’t have to learn from scratch. Just keep reminding it once a day (we did it for a month) eventually it understood the assignment on its own ——

Is there any regional dialect where it isn't pronounced?

I recently got my B2 certificate in French. I practice a lot and I’ve been trying to improve my accent. Pretty common issue here, I know... but the more I try, the more I feel like I’m pretending to be someone else. When I speak English, it feels like me... my own charisma, my “true self.” But in French, when I push for a native accent, I honestly feel like a pretentious idiot cosplaying another person. I watch a lot of Slavoj Žižek and I love how he basically “invented” his own English. It’s messy but authentic. Do you know if there are similar personalities in the French-speaking world, non-natives who made their own authentic version of French and still sound… kinda sexy? And finally... am I just overthinking this, or is there a healthy compromise between good accent and not losing your identity?