The French Journey

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In the final part of this five part series on pronouncing the 5 hardest sounds in the French accent we will confront one of the stranger nuances.

Part 5: [w] and [ɥ]

Welcome to the weird and wonderful world of the “w” related sounds in French.

[w] as in oui and moi - this is straightforward, like a very short [u] sound with the tongue all the way back

[ɥ] as in huit and lui - this is subtly different, like a very short [y] sound with the tongue all the way forward

You can hear the difference in the words Louis and lui:

Louis is flatter and longer, with the tongue at the back of the mouth

Lui is sharper and shorter, with the tongue at the front of the mouth

An example sentence: Oui, je suis moi

This sentence features both sounds in turn: [w]i, je s[ɥ]i m[w]i

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As promised throughout the series, here is the sound file that you can play and hear all five sounds being spoken in turn. Work on copying the voice and you will soon start to develop your own French accent that will win you compliments and praise for how convincing you sound. If you’re lucky

In this article we’ll be dealing with the dreaded French [R]. A rolled sound. But not always. It is often more pronounced in fits of anger and emotion. At all other times it’s just an ever-so-slight roll in most cases.

Part 4: [R]

Technical manuals describe the sound as:

A vibration of the vocal cords, a continuous consonant for which you can hear air passing over the tongue as it is raised at the back, and a brief batting of the uvula (the middle dangly bit). Tip of the tongue remains lowered and unmoving.

It may be easier to practice with this in mind, and without necessarily worrying about doing a big roll on every R of every word. It is a little like clearing your throat in a controlled manner.

Words to practice:

Sérieux – grand – riz – terre – boire – Paris – France – Irlande

En Irlande, pour boire c’est sérieux.

A Paris, on trouve du riz.

En France, on trouve la grande ville de la lumière.

Now if you feel that you are not yet reproducing this sound as it should be, be patient and just get as close as you can. The tell-tale giveaway of a native English speaker is not converting their [R] sounds to the French version. Try saying the above sounds with an English [R] – that might be as off-putting to a French speaker listening to you as a French speaker rolling all of their [R] sounds in English would be to us.

Finally, click through here to see the influence of this sound throughout Europe: Guttural R sound, Wikipedia

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A handy audio version of this and the other articles in this series is to be distributed at the end.

All questions below, thank you.

We’ve tackled the hardest vowel sounds, now it’s time to tackle the nasals. These are sounds that are quite particular to the French language in their prominence. When those wishing to spoof the language for comedic effect say “Hee haw haw”, these are probably the sounds they are emulating.

Part 3: [ɛ̃] [ɑ̃] [õ]

[ɛ̃] as in vin - tightened lips, mouth nearly closed, tongue at the front (English: anchor)

[ɑ̃] as in cent - lips slightly rounded, mouth open, tongue slightly back (English: song)

[õ] as in mon - lips very rounded, mouth nearly closed, tongue at the back (English: pong)

An example containing all three of these nasal sounds would be: Vincent mon ami

Or how about: Dans son grand bain = d[ɑ̃] s[õ] gr[ɑ̃] b[ɛ̃]

Being able to distinguish the difference between these three sounds will help to clarify your accent for any French-speaking listeners you may be talking to. How these sounds are pronounced does vary around France, Quebec, West Africa etc. but you will find that on the whole they sound as written in these examples.

With regards to the English examples above, song and pong are very similar, but if you can imagine song being said with the mouth open, and pong with the mouth nearly closed, you should hear the difference.

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A version you can listen to will be provided at the end of the French accent series.

All questions welcome in the comments section below.