The French Accent

[Carmody]

Re: The Parisian French accent

My wife and I attended a French language evening class about 6 mos. ago and found that the 80+ y.o. lady who was our teacher, and who was from Paris, spoke French with a beautiful accent. It was a light, lilting and beautifully enunciated speech.I have often heard it said that some languages have a melody or music of sorts to the language, and she definitely spoke in a certain lovely rhythm.

Does anyone know of any videos where I could listen to French spoken with a more gentle, enunciated, light manner that I associate with Parisian French.

I have listened to:
http://www.tv5mondeplus.com/emission/7- ... la-planete
http://www.france24.com/fr/
http://www.bfmtv.com/mediaplayer/live-video/

but I don’t find the lightness and lilting quality that I associate with some people with a Parisian dialect. Does anyone know what I am talking about and where I might find this type of dialect on the internet?

Thanks.
NB: every country has its dialects and I don’t consider one dialect right or wrong, but it is hard not to have a personal preference.

[tomgosse]

If she is in her eighties, she grew up in the 1930's and 1940's. She may be using a more formal register of speech than would be used today. I would look for films made before WWII. Even English language films made in the United States and the United Kingdom sound much different from today's films. Check out this article on the mid-Atlantic accent.

[Carmody]

Thank you so much Tom. Most helpful.

[Carmody]

By the way, how would people describe a Parisian accent and what examples are available on YouTube and elsewhere?

Does Mireille in French in Action have a Parisian accent?

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=e2TkxS0gCuE

[tastyonions]

A distinct "Parisian accent" basically hardly exists anymore. When people talk about a "Parisian accent" now they sometimes mean the "standard" French that is spoken on the airwaves, which is hardly distinct to a city or region, or in some cases the term might refer to the so-called "accent de banlieue," a term mostly attached to the speech of marginalized youth on the periphery of big cities (mostly Paris).

And in any case I would hardly describe the working class Parisian speech you can hear in some old films as "light" or "lilting." The French accents typically considered more mellifluous are those from the south.

[Carmody]

Thank you.

[DaveBee]

Does anyone know of any videos where I could listen to French spoken with a more gentle, enunciated, light manner that I associate with Parisian French.

I've done a little faffing around trying to find a french accent I like. I use wikipedia > french cities > famous people from there and then listen to any I can find on YouTube.

Normandy: I thought this would be a good one, it's physically close to the UK, so I thought the accent would be influenced by english. There seems to be a slight nasal thing going on though, so no.
e.g. Michel Bussi.

Belgae: In roman France they identified one tribe as Belgae. Dutch is often described as the closest relative of english, so I thought french speakers who neighboured dutch speakers (belgians!) might have an easier accent. I looked at the wikipedia page for roman belgae > largest cities > famous people, and I think I have some candidates that I like.
e.g. Adrien Tomas, Laurent Delahousse, Norman fait les videos.

[MorkTheFiddle]

Re: The Parisian French accent

Does anyone know what I am talking about and where I might find this type of dialect on the internet?

Yes. A Librivox reader named Bernard speaks with a bit of the lilt in his Proust readings. Autour de Mme Swann is part of À l'ombre des jeunes filles en fleurs, if you want to follow along.
If Proust happens to intimidate you, don't let him. He is a bear to read, but rather pleasant to listen to.

From time to time I have heard the lilt in other audios, but have no memory of where, unfortunately. I did not hear the lilt in Paris when I was there, but that was for only 10 days.

Iberian Spanish has a similar lilt, which I speculate is restricted to Madrid. Could both lilts come from an underlying Celtic, perhaps, and thus perhaps be akin to the Irish lilt??? Je n'en sais rien.

[Carmody]

My thanks to everyone for their thoughtful consideration on this. Most appreciated.

Walt Whitman once said that if you speak to me in the right tone of voice, there is nothing that I will not do for you. And as I get older, I find that I notice tone of voice very much more.

That said, my wife and I are about at A2 level and get quickly lost if things are said too quickly.

I downloaded and listened to:
À l'ombre des jeunes filles en fleurs

And yes very much liked it and probably will listen a lot more.
But one I also like is this one on Podclub which is nice but who lacks the discernible lilt to my ears. I believe she is from the Alsace/Lorraine region:

http://tinyurl.com/ybk7myrn

If I were honest, I would admit that my wife and I find women easier to understand than men at this point in time, and when they speak slowly “there is nothing I would not do.”


Many thanks folks.