French person here : no differences, we pronounce them all é and we don't care.

For record, if ever you are ashamed to have some accent in french, one current top show in France with French people on it got french subtitles (about farmer looking for love)

> French person here : no differences, we pronounce them all é and we don't care.

That is very far from the truth, and unhelpful. Yes, some people have accents, but it’s not because you cannot hear the difference (or at least claim you cannot) that it does not exist. Out of curiosity, how do you pronounce "il a fermé la fenêtre"?

For non-French people: there are accents in which é and è are most of the time very similar, particularly in the South. They are very proud of it somehow. I am all for regional accents, but claiming that your particular pronunciation is the one true way is ridiculous.

French person here: there absolutely is a difference, at least in the "heard on TV" accent.

Could you be talking about the southern accent where maybe those sound similar?

A pet theory of mine is that people confusing "est" (sounds like "è", means "[he/she/it] is") and "et" (sounds like "é", means "and") while writing grew up with an accent that does not make the distinction between those sounds. (I don't criticize the mistake or the accent but have always been curious about this precise kind of writing mistake because those two words sound so different to me)

> French person here : no differences, we pronounce them all é and we don't care.

No we don’t, wtf

é and è (as well as e but it goes without saying) are very clearly distinct sounds.

> one current top show in France with French people on it got french subtitles

One friend of mine once had to translate English-to-English in France. A French policeman or taxi driver or something knew English as a second language. My friend is from New Jersey and sounds like what I might call CNN English (is there a name for roughly "unaccented" Northeast/West Coast/DC English?). The other person he was with had a thick Alabama accent. The Frenchman could not understand what he said directly, but could understand it when repeated by the New Jerseyan.

> French person here : no differences, we pronounce them all é and we don't care.

No we don't.

In the South the é sound is more common while in the North they tend to pronounce the è very 'correctly', but that does not apply to all words.

For instance the way someone pronounces "après". In the South it is quite common to pronounce it pretty much like if it was written "aprés". Same goes for "est", e.g. il est(é) vs il est(è).

That's how you recognise a Parisian in Marseille because they have an "accent pointu" ;)

Nice, thanks for sharing. Having been "accent shamed" in the past with Spanish*, I am a little terrified to try speaking foreign language in front of others. Hearing this makes me want to learn French (on top of plenty of other great reasons to learn it).

* In fairness, most (but not all) of it was probably light-hearted laughter, but I didn't understand that at the time so it left an unfortunate psychological imprint on me that is hard to shake and gives me anxiety even thinking about it

Non. Personne ne prononce tous les accents de la même manière.

I love when watching shows in English, but they have to add subtitles of English speakers. Anecdotally it seems to be most common for New Zealanders speaking with a strong accent, which I find hilarious (as an Australian).

You pronounce "fête" as "féte" (basically, equivalent to the English "faith" without the "h" sound at the end)? To my hear these two sound very different.

> no differences, we pronounce them all é and we don't care.

Non.

Les français de l'académie française just prove my point : so much ways to pronounce the same word that we don't care beside on internet, like for la raisintine... Getting the wrong é/è/ê/ë won't make you not understandable. e is indeed different

That's patently false in my dialect at the very least...

But also true that we have some strong local accents, and that people no matter their level should feel encouraged to at least try to speak French. It's the best way to learn.

> French person here :

I could guess that solely from the space before ':'

Many Americans turn on subtitles when watching tv/movies

Gone are the days when American actors flaunted those crisply enunciated albeit preposterous "continental" accents