How can I reduce my accent when speaking French

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Kraut
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Re: How can I reduce my accent when speaking French

Postby Kraut » Tue Dec 26, 2017 5:43 pm

Listen to genuine French telephone calls:
https://forum.language-learners.org/vie ... 19&p=90368
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Ingaræð
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Re: How can I reduce my accent when speaking French

Postby Ingaræð » Wed Dec 27, 2017 1:22 pm

Arnaud wrote:I don't remember exactly who suggested that, but someone learning french said that " du français" had helped her and was better than FSI french phonology. You could give it a try (easy to find, hmm, hmm...)

That might have been me! :) You quoted me in another thread about the FSI course, which led me to do a review of the FSI course vs. the phonétique progressive series.
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Re: How can I reduce my accent when speaking French

Postby reineke » Wed Dec 27, 2017 5:01 pm

500 Exercices de Phonétique (A1/A2) (French Edition) by Dominique Abry

2 x 6 hours of audio

"I owned an earlier version of this, "350 Exercices". That program has been updated, split between the A1/A2 and B1/B2 books and the exercises are now on CD, instead of tape cassette, which makes the sound files easier to play and to use on different devices.

This is simply the best French pronunciation guide I've ever used. It starts with the basics, the alphabet, and moves on to vowels, consonants, liaisons, enchainements, articulation, intonation, and rhythm. The drills are varied and involve sound and beat identification, repetition, and transcription. Normal and informal register speech are covered, as is the French International Phonetic Alphabet. The Hachette site has some downloadable excerpts if you'd like to sample the program."

"The voices speaking on the CD are both male and female and it is easy to identify with either paragon."

https://www.amazon.com/Exercices-Phonet ... merReviews


Phonétique En Dialogues + Audio CD (Beginner)

https://www.cle-international.com/phone ... 52207.html

https://www.amazon.com/Phonetique-Dialo ... netique+en
Last edited by reineke on Wed Dec 27, 2017 5:46 pm, edited 1 time in total.
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Re: How can I reduce my accent when speaking French

Postby tastyonions » Wed Dec 27, 2017 5:15 pm

Arnaud wrote:
nooj wrote:Hey, you sound a lot better than a lot of people I've met! You pronounce the /r/ in the French way, so that's already a huge difference between a lot of English speakers.
I agree with you that the accent is not a disaster, as the audio track is easy to understand but the /r/ is absolutly not a french r. It's a mix of english r and of german hard /ch/.

Might be a result of overdoing the perceived "harshness" of the French R. I had the same tendency when I started learning French.

German hard CH = French R after unvoiced consonants: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Voiceless_uvular_fricative#Occurrence

But it sounds wrong after vowels.
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Re: How can I reduce my accent when speaking French

Postby DaveBee » Wed Dec 27, 2017 6:36 pm

reineke wrote:500 Exercices de Phonétique (A1/A2) (French Edition) by Dominique Abry
The back cover of this book has an advert for SpeedLingua.com.
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Re: How can I reduce my accent when speaking French

Postby Colorblend » Wed Dec 27, 2017 9:11 pm

I never put too much effort into the accent part. Scandinavians have a distinct accent that is very apparent regardless of what language we try and although English-speakers are often impressed with my vocabulary my accent is super strong still after 27 years of learning. When I struggled to gather enough Spanish words to be able to get by I never cared about my accent because that would take valuable time and energy. It depends on the level and your aspirations, the vocabulary is the toolbox and the accent is the decoration and I put my effort in gathering tools. I hardly even bothered with the grammar, I strolled around South America and spoke Spanish like Tarzan. Somehow I survived.

Oh, I forgot you asked a question. I have no answer for that. :lol:
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Re: How can I reduce my accent when speaking French

Postby tomgosse » Thu Dec 28, 2017 1:15 am

reineke wrote:500 Exercices de Phonétique (A1/A2) (French Edition) by Dominique Abry

2 x 6 hours of audio

"I owned an earlier version of this, "350 Exercices". That program has been updated, split between the A1/A2 and B1/B2 books and the exercises are now on CD, instead of tape cassette, which makes the sound files easier to play and to use on different devices.

This is simply the best French pronunciation guide I've ever used. It starts with the basics, the alphabet, and moves on to vowels, consonants, liaisons, enchainements, articulation, intonation, and rhythm. The drills are varied and involve sound and beat identification, repetition, and transcription. Normal and informal register speech are covered, as is the French International Phonetic Alphabet. The Hachette site has some downloadable excerpts if you'd like to sample the program."

"The voices speaking on the CD are both male and female and it is easy to identify with either paragon."

https://www.amazon.com/Exercices-Phonet ... merReviews


I have one problem with this book. Each chapter starts numbering its audio exercises with the number one. On the CD the audio files are numbered from one to 461. That makes it difficult for me to keep track of where I am, and which audio file is next. Other than that, a good book on pronunciation.
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Re: How can I reduce my accent when speaking French

Postby reineke » Thu Dec 28, 2017 2:48 am

Windows Media Player allows you to rip CDs onto your computer. Most Cowon media players have an autoresume feature and so do many Android apps (like Folder player). You can also organize the ripped files into folders.
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Re: How can I reduce my accent when speaking French

Postby Cavesa » Thu Dec 28, 2017 4:11 pm

Lots of good advice here, much of which I second. I am not in favour of holding oneself to the "like a native or I suck" thinking, which is very common among learners and sometimes counter productive. But it is definitely possible to acquire a rather neutral accent (one that doesn't scream where you are from), or a "native from a different region" accent. My usual goal is people not asking about the accent, which can be either of these options. I would advise:

1.Don't panic. Being more relaxed about speaking makes a huge difference. It makes learning easier and also lets you use your whole ability while speaking. I know how hard it is not to control oneself sometimes. It is useful but sometimes too harsh, too discouraging, too tying. Lâchez prise.

2.The CLE books are very good, I second the recommendation.

3.Lots of listening. Lots. The input helps, but most people are not getting enough of it. Hundreds of hours of exposure help the brain get used to the correct sounds.

4.Repeating after audio. I use tv series the most for learning. As an extensive resource (point 3), but also for intensive activities sometimes. Imitation of a speaking model is great. Repeat a sentence after the actor as closely as possible, include the content, the tone, the emotion. (Even the facial expression, if it helps :-D ) And the next sentence. It may help to use only female/male voices at first. Sometimes it is easier to use a model closer to one's own voice. Or some people hear male voices more clearly, due to the different ways we hear low and high tones. Some people prefer the female voices. Other kinds of audio are helpful too, but the tv series (well chosen ones) are the closest to natural language from the resources reachable from your home. And the video part helps too, as you see the face and lips moving (I am not sure how much can one consciously analyse that, but I think we copy this while imitating too.)

Perhaps audacity, which was recommended, may be very helpful, especially if you have harder time identifying where exactly you sound different. From my experience, it is not hard to tell how different or close to the model I am, and that is the only thing I need (the outcome is to either go on or to better imitate the original). But this may be one of the language learning aspects people with musical ear and/or training have an advantage at.

So, the bottom line of what I would recommend: 1.relax 2.focus on details 3.focus on the whole thing
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Re: How can I reduce my accent when speaking French

Postby Dylan95 » Sun Jan 07, 2018 1:36 pm

If you're having trouble figuring out how to pronounce individual words, you can always try wiktionary.

https://en.wiktionary.org/wiki/chienne

Each page has an audio recording of the word.


If you want to improve your accent, I would suggest listening to audio in french while following with a script. (music, movies, the news, whatever you can find). The more I hear in the target language, the better my accent gets over time.
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