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| Arteum | Friday 01st of April 2005 12:13:31 PM |
| French "é" and "è" - Mery, can you please record the difference in pronunciation between these ("é" and "è")? I always suspected these sounds were pronounced in a slightly different manner, but I never payed due attention to that. I was also pretty negligent about accents (/, \, and ^ in general), thinking about them as a nuisance tolerated only due to historical reasons, whereas in fact these accents signify slightly different sounds. I was so frustrated today when I found it out! It seems I have to learn the pronunciation of half of the French words again! Because every second word contains these accents! | |
| Ulven | Friday 01st of April 2005 07:03:56 PM |
| - And while we're at it, I'd like to know how to type the è on Frencg keys. I can type é and ê, but not the other one.
é is like the English e in 'best' + i in 'pin' ---> [b]ei[/b], but not a diphthong. A short 'ay' sound, but French.lol [b]café[/b] being the famous word with this letter. If you know how to pronounce this correctly, you'll hear it is different from the other two. And as for the other two, I don't know the difference between è and ê, or e alone in certain circumstances like in -et word endings. So I also wouldn't mind knowing if there even is a difference. I know that putting the ^ and \ usually is for syllabic emphasis, but why there's two different accents? I know not. But I'm not as accurate as you, Arteum, so I guess I don't care enough to ask for samples :)lol. EDIT: Thanks Slasher. But I want to type the è on French keyboard. But, at least now I can type it the hard way, which is better than no way. But if I'm writing full paragraphs, I don't want to press alt + 138 every 3rd word, if I can help it. But, thanks, it's something. As you can see, I've edited the è's into this post ;). | |
| hasu | Friday 01st of April 2005 07:05:13 PM |
| - I'm french and i can't say the difference between this 2... I do the same sound for all this accents ;) So Merry help me too please ^^ | |
| slasher | Friday 01st of April 2005 08:11:38 PM |
| How to get an è an é and a ç - to get any of these letters you need to have the numlock on then, holt the alt key and type in 138 on the numpad and release alt for è, hold alt, 130 release alt for é abd hold alt, 135 release alt for ç.
I hope i have been a help Ulven. Slash | |
| Mery | Friday 01st of April 2005 11:29:32 PM |
| - Arteum, I have bad news for you :( I'm really sorry, I won't be able to record audio files because I have problems with my sound recorder. I tried to solve the problem for about two hours, but it still doesn't work. I guess it's because I changed some of my settings a few days ago. I'll phone a friend tonight and see what he can do for me. If I see you online on Skype, I might try to explain you the difference between é and è. I'm not sure my mic will be working. So, we might not have a voice Classroom on Saturday :( I'm so sorry. I hate my computer. I can't even use my other computer because I can't even start it.
To answer your question, yes I can clearly hear the difference between é and è. If I'm not mistaken é is more or less pronounced as ey in the word h[b]ey[/b] and è is similar to e as in gu[b]e[/b]ss. A few days ago a friend of mine asked me the same question as yours and I recorded an audio file for him. He wanted to know the difference between '[b]et[/b] mon ami' (é sound) et '[b]est[/b] mon ami' (è sound). Here's the file (I'd have prefered to record a sentence, here you can't really hear the difference). http://duckie.free.fr/monami.mp3 If it's still unclear for you, maybe you can't try to listen to the audio file where I pronounce the different forms of the verb 'avoir', cf. France Forum. Listen carefully to [b]j'ai[/b] and you'll hear the sound é. Two weeks ago I sent an email to the French group with the address of my forum. In an audio file posted there, I pronounce the word [b]lait[/b] => sound è There's no difference in pronounciation between ê and è. Hasu, I'm sure you pronounce é and è differently, but you probably don't realize it. You have to use two different pronunciations, otherwise how would you for example distinguish the futur tense from the conditional? E.g. = j'aurai (é) vs. j'aurais (è) Here are the two (ridiculous) sentences I wanted to record: - j'[b]ai[/b] [b]é[/b]t[b]é[/b] pr[b]é[/b]par[b]er[/b] le dîn[b]er[/b] parce que l'infirmi[b]er[/b] va bientôt arriv[b]er[/b] ==> loads of é sounds - mon Classroom [b]est[/b] tr[b]è[/b]s gentil, il buv[b]ai[/b]t le l[b]ai[/b]t qui se trouv[b]ai[/b]t sur la fen[b]ê[/b]tre => loads of è sounds After trying to pronounce those two sentences, do you still think you don't make a distinction between é and è... I doubt it ;) | |
| Arteum | Saturday 02nd of April 2005 01:48:22 AM |
| How to type "è" - Ulven, if you are using Windows, you have probably added the French language keyboard in the Control Panel. The secret is: don't install (or add, or whatever you call it) French French keyboard -- it is very different from the BrE or AmE one. Install Canadian French keyboard -- it has much more intuitive keys. I mastered the Canadian French keyboard in just a comple of days. So, "è" is typed by pressing the key for ' on Canadian French keyboard.
Now I can start reading Mery's post ;-) | |
| Arteum | Saturday 02nd of April 2005 02:02:43 AM |
| - OK, Mery, it seems even more complicated than I thought ;-( :-0
Not only do I need to know the difference between "è" and "é", but I need to know how each "e" and "ai" sound is pronounced!! Nobody ever told me that "et" and "est" were pronounced differently (even my French teacher in a Ukrainian school)! Moreover, I was always marvelling how it was possible to distinguish between j'aurai and j'aurais, or similar pairs (of course I thought these sounded absolutely indentical!). I even asked a French guy who works in our building, and he just shrugged his sholders and told me that it is always clear from the context if you are using the future or the conditional. To me, it was not always clear ... but I had to put up with that. Now I want to inspect the pronunciation in my dictionary -- maybe it indeed distinguishes between the "è" and the "é" sounds. But surely this will not solve the problem because the dictionary gives only one form of every verb. It would not tell me that j'aurai and j'aurais sound different! AAAA! :-0 What to do? Only one way? To listen to native speakers as much as possible and try to catch where they say "è" and where "é"?! | |
| Ulven | Wednesday 06th of April 2005 07:21:29 PM |
| - Merci pour ton conseil à les claviers de la France et du Canada. J'ai déja le changé. Je suis déja commencer à être bien après seulement deux jours. Sur le clavier de la France, les lettres 'q' et 'a' ont me ennuyé toujous. mais le plus mauvais était le 'm':S. Et alors, on peux utiliser les emoticons sur le clavier du Canada:) <--- regarde! ha ha.
My basic translation = the Canadian French keyboard is much easier for me. On the issue of [b]ai[/b] vs [b]ais[/b], I didn't know this. I thought they were both [b]è[/b]. It's good to know there's a distinction. Though I'd have to admit to being doubtful about all French people being accurate in applying this difference:D. But I hope to integrate this knew knowledge into my pronunciation. I also didn't know [b]et[/b] was pronounced as [b]é[/b]. So, I'll be over-abusing this sound for 'et' and 'ai' until it becomes natural:D. Mery, do you know if it may only be Belgians who make these distinctions? Just an idea. I'd assume French people would be even more picky about pronunciation than Belgians, so I'd have to say that if Belgians do it, so must the French. | |
| Mery | Thursday 07th of April 2005 09:04:45 AM |
| - No Ulven, the distinction between é and è really exists. I don't see why we'd have two different types of accents if they'd refer to the same sound *-) I don't know a lot of French people, but my ex boyfriend is French and I think he distinguishes é and è. I guess I'd have noticed it if he used the same sound for both é and è.
I was a bit surprised when I read your sentence: [quote] I'd assume French people would be even more picky about pronunciation than Belgians, so I'd have to say that if Belgians do it, so must the French. [/quote] Why should French people be more picky about pronunciation??? French spoken in Belgium is very similar to French spoken in France. There are a few differences, but not big enough to make a distinction between the two types of French. People who don't make a distinction between é and è maybe have a problem with pronunciation. You know, most French speaking people can't write without making any mistake (or hardly any mistake), so the problem they have with writing can be the same for speaking. Excuse my poor English tonight, it's 4 am here. A last comment: please, don't think it's optional to pronounce é as è or vice versa because it's not!!! Une conclusion très simple pour terminer mon post :) | |
| Ulven | Thursday 07th of April 2005 08:45:35 PM |
| - :)I wasn't refering to é vs è.:) I've always distinguished these two easily. I was refering to the verb ending 'ai' and 'ais'. But, the point you made is the same. I just thought France's accent was thicker, is all. Though, I don't meet enough Belgians to compare. I was just wondering whether the accents were different enough to give different accounts of the sounds, is all. I see now that they're not that different. In my first post in this thread, you'll see where I say that é and è are NOT similar to one another ;).
Excuse me for confusing you:)lol. Desolé | |
| Mery | Thursday 07th of April 2005 09:59:56 PM |
| - Ahhhhh :D Désolée, I should have read your post more carefully. It was very late and I misunderstood what you wrote :$
Ok, just take my previous post and replace é and è by ai and ais :) As I said to hasu, you have to make a distinction between the two, otherwise how you'd you distinguish 'j'arriverai' (future tense) from j'arriverais (conditionnel). I'll record a file with all the 'é' and 'è' sounds in general (including ai and ais) and post it here :) Voilà, désolée, je lirai plus attentivement la prochaine fois ;) | |
