| ▲ | abrowne 3 days ago |
| The other way – trying to spell a word you hear – is harder, since many sounds have multiple possible spellings. Hence la dictée. |
|
| ▲ | throwaway894345 2 days ago | parent | next [-] |
| Yeah, this is my major difficulty with French, and it's even more difficult in colloquial spoken French which may drop entire syllables or words. I often find African pronunciations of French to be easier because they seem to pronounce each syllable distinctly. |
|
| ▲ | elric 2 days ago | parent | prev | next [-] |
| Having grown up in two languages where dictée is a thing, I was always bemused by spelling bees. You have to spell one word? And have loads of time to do so? Pah! |
| |
| ▲ | rkomorn 2 days ago | parent [-] | | To be fair, spelling bees usually have more complicated words (though the complicated ones are often borrowed from French anyway so, win-win for some of us). |
|
|
| ▲ | isolli 3 days ago | parent | prev [-] |
| While helping my children learn French spelling, I was horrified when I realized that there are 6 or 7 ways to write the sound [ɛ̃]:
un in (im) [i]en ain aim ein |
| |
| ▲ | wat10000 2 days ago | parent | next [-] | | Gotta get it right or you'll order some wind instead of some wine. (Did that once, and that's how the difference finally stuck for me.) | | |
| ▲ | throwaway894345 2 days ago | parent [-] | | What did the server bring to your table? A fan? | | |
| ▲ | wat10000 2 days ago | parent [-] | | They understood what I meant, and then the French folks I was with had a long discussion with me about how it's not the same sound. | | |
| ▲ | throwaway894345 2 days ago | parent [-] | | Yeah, I've been there. Apparently my pronunciation of "Chretien" (Christian) was indecipherable, and the French people I was speaking with clarified it for me by saying, "you're saying cray-tee-uh(n), but it's pronounced cray-tee-uh(n)" | | |
|
|
| |
| ▲ | skydhash 2 days ago | parent | prev [-] | | The first one (un) is different from the others. | | |
| ▲ | isolli 2 days ago | parent [-] | | So I've been told... but I could never hear the difference myself! | | |
| ▲ | skydhash 2 days ago | parent | next [-] | | The first one is pronounced with an O shape with the mouth (like you would do with the word oh), and the others with more of a smile shape (like with the word see). It’s impossible to pronounce one like the other. I’m not a native English speaker and I gave up trying to pronounce th (father, through). Although I can hear the difference. | | |
| ▲ | l-p 2 days ago | parent | next [-] | | This has to be a regionalism because there're strictly identical to me, eg. in "Un train." /œ̃tʁɛ̃/ I say the two vowels exactly the same way. After a cursory search it seems my Parisian-ish accent is at fault: https://fr.wiktionary.org/wiki/Annexe:Prononciation/fran%C3%... | | |
| ▲ | arkh 2 days ago | parent [-] | | Yup, very parisian. Love how then they almost mock how pain (bread) is pronounced in the south-west where you won't mistake the sounds between the words un pain. |
| |
| ▲ | strongpigeon 2 days ago | parent | prev [-] | | > I’m not a native English speaker and I gave up trying to pronounce th (father, through). Although I can hear the difference. Why can't the Québécois count to four? Because there is a tree in the way. |
| |
| ▲ | AStrangeMorrow 2 days ago | parent | prev [-] | | Arguably so is “aim/ein etc” and “in”, though more dialect dependent and more subtle. The former for me have a bit more exhale and round sound while the “in” are a tad drier. For example “fin” and “faim” are distinct for me. However “faim” and “feint” |
|
|
|
