Allez, on va parler le français!

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Sumelic
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Allez, on va parler le français!

Post by Sumelic »

Bienvenue!
/bjɛ̃vəny/
[bjæ̃vœny]
Welcome!

This thread will be for learning French! It's a Romance language with speakers across the globe, and it's one of the languages with the most historical contact with English. Despite this, there are still quite a few surprises for the English speaker learning French.

The main variety I'll be endeavoring to teach is "generic colloquial spoken French" (my invented terminology). To explain what I mean by that, I'll have to briefly describe some sociological factors related to the French language. In writing, there are many elements of the French language that are standardized and conservative; not only the spelling, but some parts of the grammar, morphology and vocabulary as well. These conservative elements can also be heard in speech to some extent, especially from speakers who are reading out loud or speaking to an audience in a formal setting. But in general, spontaneous spoken speech has a consistent pattern of differences from written texts, even among educated speakers. It's not exactly on the level of Arabic diglossia, or the historical Greek diglossia between Katharevousa and Dhimotiki, but it's more prominent than the difference between spoken and written English.

Of course, regional varieties of spoken French differ from the written standard in somewhat different ways, but there are also some characteristics of spoken French that are almost universal. Traditionally, second-language learners of French learn a semi-standardized "International French" based mainly on the phonology of Parisian French, the vocabulary of written French, and the grammar of both written French and spoken French. This is essentially what I learned in my three years of high school French and 1.5 years in college (I completed the sequence up through Intermediate French). Unfortunately, although varieties like Quebec French and African French are useful and interesting, I don't know enough to teach about them in this thread, and I also don't know enough colloquial vocabulary from any variety of French, even Parisian, to give a true introduction to that. Fortunately, French speakers should be able to understand you even if all you know is International/written French vocabulary, although you might not understand 100% of what they say!

I'll be covering the same content as in a traditional French class in these lessons, but my plan is to focus on attaining an acceptable version of the spoken language and to teach the written language as a somewhat distinct variety. The point of this is to try to avoid giving the impression that French people speak like they write; often, this is not the case. For that reason, even though I'll present a gloss including the orthography for the spoken French phrases, don't assume that you can write like this in standard written French. And although I'll present a phonetic gloss for the written French phrases, this isn't necessarily appropriate for use in spontaneous speech; it merely indicates the way the phrase would be read out loud.

Resources:
If you want to learn Quebec French, here's a cool blog about it, with a lot of information on the vital category of vocabulary: http://offqc.com
To research a French word you think might be slang, there's Bob, the "dictionnaire d'argot": http://www.languefrancaise.net/bob/
Linguee is a great site for translators or just people who want to find the right way to phrase something in another language: http://www.linguee.com
Sumelic
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Re: Allez, on va parler le français!

Post by Sumelic »

French Phonology: Phoneme Inventory
It makes a lot of sense to start here. The good news is that French makes relatively few distinctions that English doesn't, so there shouldn't be many pairs of phonemes that are hard for you to distinguish. The most confusable to the ear for an English speaker are probably in the vowels and semivowels: back-rounded vs. front-rounded, and the mid-high vs. mid-low vowels.

Consonants:
/p b t d k g/
/m n ɲ*/
/f v s z ʃ ʒ/
/ʁ l j w† ɥ†/ (may be analyzed as allophones of high vowels)

*unlike in Spanish, /ɲ/ is not always consistently distinguished from /nj/, so the latter would be an acceptable realization for a 2nd-language speaker
†the glides /w/ and /ɥ/ may also be analyzed as allophones of the high vowels /u/ and /y/, which alternate with them in morphological forms based on the phonetic environment (/i/ also alternates with /j/, but there is also non-alternating /j/ descended from former /ʎ/)

Most important differences from corresponding English phonemes:
  • The voiced consonants are fully voiced, so be careful not to devoice them at the start of words (this occurs for voiced plosive phonemes in English for some speakers) or at the end of words.
  • The voiceless plosives are considered to be unaspirated; levels of actual aspiration may be a bit variable depending on the phonetic environment, but in any case they are less strongly aspirated than in English.
  • Word-final plosives are not glottalized or devoiced; most commonly, they are given audible release. In some cases, an alternate pronunciation with a following schwa is possible; this is not considered the usual pronunciation in standard international French
Vowels:
Monophthongs: /a ɛ e i œ ø y ɔ o u ɑ̃ ɛ̃ œ̃ ɔ̃/
Diphthongs: /ɥi ɔ̯a ɔ̯ɛ̃/ (the latter are more commonly transcribed /wa/ and /wɛ̃/)
Schwa: /ə/ (I'll discuss this later, but it is not the same as the English phoneme transcribed the same way)

Most important differences from similar English phonemes:
  • /a/ is not a back [ɑ], so be careful not to pronounce it like this; whether it is closest to your English /æ/ or /ɑ/ depends on what dialect of English you speak
  • monophthongal /e/ and /o/; in fact, standard international French has no falling diphthongs at all
  • /i/ and /u/ (and /y/) are monophthongal and quite high; in addition, be sure to pronounce /u/ as a fully back vowel without the centralization that is somewhat common for English /u/
  • /ɛ/, although frequently somewhat raised at the end of words, is nevertheless kept distinct from /e/ in this position in standard speech
Producing phonemes with no similar English equivalents:
  • /ʁ/: this is a very common French phoneme, and you can't really substitute an English /ɹ/ for it. The standard phonetic realization is uvular continuant or in some cases a trill; the other phonetic features are not as important and can vary a bit. The most famous realization is as the trill /ʀ/ (think Edith Piaf) but most speakers actually use an approximant or fricative /ʁ/. Voicing is not contrastive, so it may also be heard as /χ/ in some cases.
  • Nasal vowels: You might find it hard to hear the difference between these and oral vowels; fortunately there are also secondary phonetic cues like length and quality. One way to learn how to produce a nasal vowel is to practice saying words like "bomb" that end in a nasal consonant in English, and try to cut yourself off in the middle before you actually say the consonant. The consonant /ŋ/ is not an acceptable realization of vowel nasalization. Note that the vowel I transcribe /ɛ̃/ (and its corresponding segment in the diphthong /ɔ̯ɛ̃/) is realized significantly lower by most speakers, as [æ̃]. For some speakers, /ɔ̃/ is also realized higher, as [õ].
  • Front rounded vowels: for [y], the usual advice is to pronounce /i/, with the lips rounded as for . It's a pretty distinctive sound, so you should be able to hear when you've gotten it right. Once you've learned it, be careful not to hypercorrect instances of /u/ in French to /y/. The glide /ɥ/ is merely the non-syllabic equivalent of this. For /ø/ and /œ/, you should in theory be able to do the same thing, but I didn't find this method as helpful for these vowels (perhaps because my native English doesn't have /e/). There are relatively few words where these two sounds are distinguished in French, but you'll need to pronounce them differently to sound natural, and it's also important to learn how to distinguish them because [œ] can be a realization of the extremely common schwa vowel, /ə/. Listening to a French speaker should help you improve pronunciation of all of these sounds in time. I have a rather centralized pronunciation of /ʊ/ in English, so I find that this is actually the closest English phoneme to French /œ/ for me.


Relatively minor differences between similar French and English phonemes: (source: wikipedia article)
  • French /t/, /d/, /n/ are laminal denti-alveolar, while English /t/, /d/, /n/ are usually apical alveolar.
  • French /s z/ are "dentalized laminal alveolar"
  • /l/ in French is clear in syllable-final position, and usually apical alveolar.

For these minor and non-phonemic differences, you can really get away with using the English pronunciation to start out with, then adjusting it as you gain more experience listening and speaking French. However, if you already know how to make these distinctions, or you find that you learn better from descriptions of articulation than by listening to sounds, this information might be helpful.

Note on dialectical differences in the vowel inventory:
Some varieties of French make a few more distinctions in the vowels, notably of quality (ɑ vs. a) and of length (ɛː and ɛ, oː and o, and ɑː and a). However, these distinctions have been eliminated by mergers for most younger Parisian speakers, so they are generally not taught to students of the French language. Which words fall in which category can also vary somewhat among dialects that make one or more of these distinctions—the orthography is not always a reliable guide. Some speakers only have a quality distinction between ɑː and a, as /ɑ/ and /a/, but many speakers simply merge these to one phoneme /a/, and that is how I will transcribe the sound. For many speakers, the /œ̃/ phoneme is merged with /ɛ̃/, with the same realization of [æ̃]; however, this change is still in progress, even among Parisian speakers, so I will transcribe these as distinct phonemes.
Last edited by Sumelic on 27 Apr 2015 06:51, edited 3 times in total.
GrandPiano
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Re: Allez, on va parler le français!

Post by GrandPiano »

Looking forward to more lessons! One little note — the front rounded vowels /y/, /ø/, and /œ/ don't actually have the same kind of rounding as /u/; /u/ has protruded rounding, while the front rounded vowels have compressed rounding (see this Wikipedia article for more details).
Sumelic
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Re: Allez, on va parler le français!

Post by Sumelic »

I'm planning to gloss example sentences in these lessons, but I'm still figuring out the format. If you have any preferences, let me know! Also, does anyone know how to make glosses line up right using bb code? (Using the "code display" mode lets me put in spacing, but that doesn't look too pretty, and I can't use small caps.)

Glossing notes:
French, like many European languages, has two sets of 2nd-person pronouns that are used in different social contexts (the T-V distinction).
I’ll simply use the letters T and V in glosses to make the distinction between T and V verb forms. For French pronouns and verbs, the T-V distinction is fused with number marking; there is a T-V distinction for singular referents but not for plural referents, and the singular V forms are identical to the plural forms. (As with English’s you, this stems from a historical situation where the plural pronouns were used as formal 2nd-person singular pronouns.)

Prosody:
Keep in mind that French morpheme boundaries do not correspond to syllable boundaries. In general, it’s best to syllabify consonants with the following vowel in the same phrase.

French doesn’t have phonological word stress. The final syllable of a prosodic group in French is generally realized with more prominence and with a pitch change, which sounds a fair amount like English stress. Generally at the end of a sentence, there is a pitch fall; for prosodic groups not at the end of a sentence, there is a pitch rise. However, this pitch change shouldn’t be made too exaggerated in ordinary speech.

I’ll write ↓ or ↑ after these syllables to try to indicate one pattern of correct intonation. The preceding non-stressed syllables in the sentence should all be pronounced at about the same pitch and same “stress-level” as each other, without pauses between them.

Some glosses for me to get some practice (tell me if you'd prefer something about the format to be changed)

sentence pronunciation
morphemic breakdown : « orthography »
morpheme-by-morpheme gloss
"English translation" "Alternative English translation"

kɔmɑ̃ sava↓
kɔmɑ̃ sa va : « Comment ça va? »
How it go.3SG ?
“How’s it going?” ”How are you doing?”

Code: Select all

kɔmɑ̃ sava↓
kɔmɑ̃ sa va : « Comment ça va? »
How  it go.3SG ?
“How’s it going?” ”How are you doing?”
@GrandPiano: That's a good point. The front rounded vowels are also often not as far front as the front unrouded vowels either. Clearly, you can't really get the exact pronunciation of /y/ by pronouncing /i/ with the rounding of /u/, but I found that method somewhat helpful.
Last edited by Sumelic on 29 Apr 2015 02:04, edited 1 time in total.
GrandPiano
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Re: Allez, on va parler le français!

Post by GrandPiano »

<comment> /kɔmɑ̃/

Oh, I love French orthography.
Sumelic
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Re: Allez, on va parler le français!

Post by Sumelic »

Lesson 1

In this lesson you will learn to:
• Introduce yourself to peers and ask people questions using the informal set of pronouns

kɔmɑ̃ sava↓
kɔmɑ̃ sa va « Comment ça va? »
How it go.3.SG ?
“How’s it going?” ”How are you doing?”

savabjɛ̃↓ mɛʁsi. e tɔ̯a↑, sava↑
sa va bjɛ̃, mɛʁsi. e tɔ̯a, sa va? « Ça va bien, merci. Et toi, ça va? »
it go well, thanks. and 2SG.T.OBL, it go?
“I’m doing well, thank you. How are you doing?”

pa mal↓ « Pas mal. »
not badly
“Not bad.”

You can also ask this question with a simple « ça va? », and reply to it with the same words: « ça va. » In this case, only the intonation marks the difference between asking a question and making a statement. As you see from the above examples, the rising tone is only used at the end of yes-no questions and not other types of questions, just as in English. In fact, in French you can use this intonation alone to form a yes-no question from any statement.

kɔmɑ̃ tytapɛl↓
kɔmɑ̃ ty-t-apɛl « Comment tu t’appelles? »
How 2SG.T.SUBJ-2SG.T.OBJ-call.SG ?
“What’s your name?”

You can also use the reverse order:
tytappɛl kɔmɑ̃↓ « Tu t’appelles comment? »

ʒœ̆mapɛl↑ Sɑ̃dʁin↓ / ʒmapɛl Sɑ̃dʁin
ʒə-m-apɛl Sɑ̃dʁin « Je m’appelle Sandrine. »
1SG.SUBJ-1SG.OBJ-call.SG Sandrine.
“My name is Sandrine” “I’m Sandrine.”

To say either hello or goodbye informally, you can use the simple word
[saly] « Salut! »
clawgrip
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Re: Allez, on va parler le français!

Post by clawgrip »

I've always understood that "Comment t'appelles-tu?" was the normal way to ask that question.
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Re: Allez, on va parler le français!

Post by Lao Kou »

clawgrip wrote:I've always understood that "Comment t'appelles-tu?" was the normal way to ask that question.
clawgrip wrote:What they (the books) teach is not (always) what happens in reality.
Lather. Rinse. Repeat. [:)]
道可道,非常道
名可名,非常名
cntrational
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Re: Allez, on va parler le français!

Post by cntrational »

Would you mind if I made a post on Québécois pronunciation? It's not something that needs its own thread, so I'd like to put it here.
Sumelic
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Re: Allez, on va parler le français!

Post by Sumelic »

clawgrip wrote:I've always understood that "Comment t'appelles-tu?" was the normal way to ask that question.
The form with inversion is the "elegant" way of asking the question. Subject-verb inversion is optional in questions, so you'll always be able to use SV order, and I believe French people actually don't use inversion in ordinary speech most of the time. To me, using inversion in this particular sentence seems like it would be awkward because it would mix using the informal/familiar second-person pronoun with an elevated register of grammar. (Here's some discussion about this particular sentence on Duolingo.)
cntrational wrote:Would you mind if I made a post on Québécois pronunciation? It's not something that needs its own thread, so I'd like to put it here.
I would welcome it!
clawgrip
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Re: Allez, on va parler le français!

Post by clawgrip »

Thanks for the clarification!
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Re: Allez, on va parler le français!

Post by cntrational »

WELL

Assume that anything I don't address is the same as in Hexagon French. Note that this is a highly informal pronunciation, formal speech lacks most of this.

Vowels
High vowel laxing: /i, y, u/ word finally and when followed by a consonant, become [ɪ, ʏ, ʊ]. This can happen in other positions, too. but much more irregularly. bile, bûche, soupe → [bɪl, bʏʃ, sʊp].
Diphthongization: Long vowels are diphthongized in stressed position. I'll just link you to Wikipedia's list.
Phonemic /ɛː/: A long version of /ɛ/ is distinguished from the short, usually when written ê. It's realized as [ɛɪ], not [ɛː]. pain, brun, danse, pont → [pẽɪ̃, bʁœ̃˞, pɒ̃ʊ̃]
Nasal vowels: /ɛ̃, ɔ̃, ɑ̃, and œ̃/ are realized as [ẽɪ̃, ɒ̃ʊ̃, ãʊ̃, œ̃˞], and the latter is never merged with the former, unlike Hexagon French.
Phonemic /ɑ/: /ɑ/ is a separate phoneme from /a/, ayup, unlike Hexagon where it has merged with /a/. Occurs when written â, before /ʁ/ (where it merges with /a/), and before orthographic s, and see below. As a consequence, /a/ is fronted closer to [æ]. gâteau, carottes → [ɡɑto], [kɑrɔt]
Word final vowel shifts: In word final open syllables, /ɛ/ is lowered to [æ], and /a, ɑ/ become [ɔ] (/ɔ/ merges with /o/ in this position, as with Hexagon). NOTE: /ɛ/ in verbal endings merges with /e/, so be careful! ananas, rat, lait, allais → [ananɔ, ʁɔ, læ, ale]
Dialectal pronunciations of ‹oi›: Some words written with ‹oi› get pronounced with /we/ or /ɛ/ instead of /wa/, in basilectal speech. toi, droit → /twe, dʁɛt/ ("toé, drette")

Consonants
Affrication: /t/ and /d/ before /i/ and /y/ (including their lax forms) become [ts] and [dz]. poutine, dix [putsɪn, dzi]
Stop nasalization: Voiced stops, after nasal vowels, can become nasalized themselves. tombe, blonde, longue → [tɒ̃ʊ̃m, blɒ̃ʊ̃n, lɒ̃ʊ̃ŋ].
Cluster reduction: /Cʁ/ and /Cl/, like in "libre" and "oncle" can be dropped -- [lɪb] and [ɒ̃ʊ̃k]. Even more informally, you can reduce most consonant clusters. casque → [kɑʊs]
Backing of final /ɲ/: Final /ɲ/ gets backed to [ŋ]. maligne, signe → [malɪŋ, sɪŋ]]
Final pronunciation of /t/: /t/ gets added to a lot of words where Hexagon doesn't have it. nuit, lit, ici → [nɥɪt, lɪt, isɪt] "nuitte, litte, icitte"
Dialectal rolled r: Traditional Québécois uses [r] instead of [ʁ] for /ʁ/, but this is rare as shit today.

I've omitted some of the more obtuse and irregular features of Québec pronunciation, but here you go.
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Threr
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Re: Allez, on va parler le français!

Post by Threr »

Just suggesting :
I think the title should be : "Allez, on va parler français!"
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