kerblangFrench e, è, é, ê, ë – what's the difference?
https://jakubmarian.com/french-e-e-e-e-e-whats-the-difference/
As a native (Québécois) French speaker who's been living in the US for most of my adult life, something I miss from French is that once you've learned the (many) rules, you can be pretty confident about how to pronounce a given word.
English on the other hand has so many exceptions (usually based on the origin of the word), that I still encounter words that I'll mispronounce at first. I can typically pass as a native speaker, until I "leak" by tripping on one of those.
Native English speaker, but yes this is something I love about Spanish. There are rules to learn (sometimes quite variable depending on Mexico vs. Spain, etc) but once you learn them, pronunciation is usually pretty confident.
Though one downside which I've gleaned from friends who are non-native English speakers, is that the variance in pronunciation in English does sometimes lead to native English understanding what you meant, whereas in Spanish if you're pronouncing it wrong the listener often has no idea what you're trying to say. That's heavy anecdata though. I'd be super interested to hear from others if that's been their experience or not.
I would say I agree. That being said, my experience is biased from working in Big Tech where the accents are on such a wide spectrum that people have no choice but to develop a "flexible" ear.
I think you're right that working in certain areas (geographical or professional) gives you an ability to grasp all kinds of English.
I've worked in universities and in tech, in New Jersey, LA, and Silicon Valley, and I feel like I can understand just about anyone's English.
Ironically, the ones I have the hardest time understanding are almost always Brits.
Yep, a common anecdote from European science conferences is that by the second day, everybody do settle into the thick, averaged Spanish/German/French/Italian/Russian accent of their English which is pretty much equally understandable to everyone present except from the actual guys from Oxford, England.
The other way – trying to spell a word you hear – is harder, since many sounds have multiple possible spellings. Hence la dictée.
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
un in (im) [i]en ain aim ein
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!
Like, "passage" and "massage", why do they not rhyme in English? They're both borrowed French words! And don't even start me on how English pronounce "hangar"... that's like, what if you tried to pronounce this word as differently from the original as possible while still plausibly having the same spelling.
For anyone wondering, passage and massage entered English at very different times. Passage entered in middle english (around 13th century), while massage entered in the 19th century.
The most phonetically consistent language I know is Finnish. I believe there is exactly one way to pronounce every word and it's clear to all speakers.
And the least phonetically consistent is English.
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)
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
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.
To my hear these two sound very different.
> 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.
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.
>Ê with the circumflex accent marks an “e” after which originally some other letter was written (usually an S), but this letter is no longer present in its modern spelling.
[snip]
>By imagining “es” instead of “ê”, we can often deduce the meaning of unknown words; for example, forêt = forest, fête = “feste” = fest(ival); intérêt = interest and many others. The circumflex accent is used in the very same sense also for other vowels, for example île = isle, hôte = “hoste” = host, hâte = haste.
I will always remember this, thanks to my high school French teacher who, knowing her audience, gave us a few examples like "hôpital," and then said "So you can probably guess was 'bâtard' means..."
As one dabbling in Mandarin, this french e, è, é, ê, ë thing makes me chuckle. Mā mà mǎ ma? (Is Mom scolding the horse?)