Le groupe français 2016 - 2023 Les Voyageurs

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MorkTheFiddle
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Re: Le groupe français 2016 - 2019 Les Voyageurs

Postby MorkTheFiddle » Mon Dec 05, 2022 4:39 pm

Carmody wrote:Ok folks, I promise this is the last Fred video, but I did enjoy this one. Especially La raison numero 5 pour detester les Francais c'est: les verbes irreguliers.
Fred is lively and engaging.
The opinions of tourists shouldn't preoccupy us.
Ten days in Paris do not qualify me as an expert, but the town did not seem dirty to me, not even the subway, none of the French I interacted with smelled bad, only one waiter and only one bus driver was rude. Otherwise Paris was just a very large city, and like very large American cities--Philadelphia, Dallas, LA--all kinds of people good and bad are allowed to walk the streets and work in the shops. C'est la vie.
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Many things which are false are transmitted from book to book, and gain credit in the world. -- attributed to Samuel Johnson

DaveAgain
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Re: Le groupe français 2016 - 2019 Les Voyageurs

Postby DaveAgain » Thu Dec 15, 2022 10:00 am

Radio France have two versions of A Christmas Carol: France Culture 5 episodes of 24 minutes, and France Bleu 10 episodes of 5 minutes.
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Le Baron
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Re: Le groupe français 2016 - 2019 Les Voyageurs

Postby Le Baron » Thu Dec 15, 2022 7:43 pm

DaveAgain wrote:Radio France have two versions of A Christmas Carol: France Culture 5 episodes of 24 minutes, and France Bleu 10 episodes of 5 minutes.

France Bleu is for people who can't sit still. Do they also play a pop song halfway through the episodes?
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Carmody
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Re: Le groupe français 2016 - 2019 Les Voyageurs

Postby Carmody » Tue Dec 20, 2022 2:04 am

An opportunity to hear different accents:

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MorkTheFiddle
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Re: Le groupe français 2016 - 2019 Les Voyageurs

Postby MorkTheFiddle » Tue Dec 20, 2022 6:34 pm

Carmody wrote:An opportunity to hear different accents:
Hmm. Once again I say based on my very brief stay in Paris that no French person that we met was arrogant. I don't recall speaking to any French there in English, so can't report on their responses to English. To go further, I don't remember running into any English speakers there, native or otherwise.
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Many things which are false are transmitted from book to book, and gain credit in the world. -- attributed to Samuel Johnson

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Fortheo
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Re: Le groupe français 2016 - 2019 Les Voyageurs

Postby Fortheo » Sat Dec 24, 2022 8:55 pm

Do any of you care sharing what your experience with learning the French R has been like? I didn't put much thought into it for many years and just trusted my ears and my ability to imitate what I was hearing. French speakers have recently told me that although I don't have the typical American pronunciation of the R, that my R can still use some work. More specifically I was told that my R is too strong.

From my basic understanding, the letter R can actually represent up to 4 different sounds depending on regional accents, but the two most common are the voiced uvula fricative /ʁ/, and the voiceless uvula fricative /χ/.

The voiced uvula fricative /ʁ/ is typically used at the beginning of words, between vowels, or next to voiced consonants like D, B, V, G, for example.

The voiceless uvula fricative /χ/ is typically used at the end of words and next to voiceless consonants like T, P, F, C , for example.

Personally, I find voiceless /χ/ variant far easier to pronounce (think the r in très , près).

The voiced version is harder for me (the R at the beginning of words or between vowels), but I think I'm getting better at it.

I have a question: if a word ending in R (which would normally be pronounced with the /χ/ ) is followed by a word beginning with a vowel, would the R then become the voiced /ʁ/ variant instead?

For example, take the word pouvoir on its own. It would end with the voiceless uvula fricative /χ/, but if pouvoir is in a sentence like "Il faut tout de même se rajoute d'être en vie et de pouvoir aimer" it's followed by a word beginning with a vowel, so does the R become the voiced uvula fricative /ʁ/ now? Almost more like pouvoi raimer?

I'm probably over thinking this, but I dont know how else to figure it out since apparently nearly a decade of imitating what I hear isn't accurate :D
Last edited by Fortheo on Sat Dec 24, 2022 10:26 pm, edited 1 time in total.
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Iversen
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Re: Le groupe français 2016 - 2019 Les Voyageurs

Postby Iversen » Sat Dec 24, 2022 9:45 pm

The Modern French r isn't too far from the one we use in Danish, and if I want to make it a bit more expressive I just push it ever so slightly it towards the variant I picked up from Piaf (the situation with a word ending in r followed by one starting with a vowel might be one where I would be tempted to Piafify my r's). Maybe the result isn't quite idiomatic, but so far no one has complained.
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Le Baron
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Re: Le groupe français 2016 - 2019 Les Voyageurs

Postby Le Baron » Sat Dec 24, 2022 11:53 pm

Fortheo wrote:I'm probably over thinking this, but I dont know how else to figure it out since apparently nearly a decade of imitating what I hear isn't accurate :D

I wouldn't put too much store in that sort of thing. Nit-picking like this by natives (of any language) is liable to make anyone feel they sound absolutely useless and it's often exaggerated. When I lived in France after being in Belgium people just seemed to be defaulting to the tired stereotype that Belgians all have a harsh 'r' and that I'd 'picked it up'. When in fact I'd just copied my mother's pronunciation which wasn't even harsh. And truth be told I simply ended up with a hybrid sound from moving about and being among different speakers. I do use the uvular trill on some words. This exists in Dutch as well (alongside a fricative and weak rolled 'r'), but I don't even use a fricative 'r' in Dutch I follow the Belgian standard of a rolled or dental tap (which also exists in the north of the country). Perhaps to differentiate from French.

Sometimes I have the idea of going about in France, specifically northern regions, deliberately using older southern pronunciations with an Spanish/Italienate rolled 'r' and rejecting 'correction' just to annoy everyone.

Even though there are those alterations according to where the r falls, I think most people can get away with a mild fricative 'r'. Underplaying it is less noticeable than overplaying it.
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Fortheo
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Re: Le groupe français 2016 - 2019 Les Voyageurs

Postby Fortheo » Sun Dec 25, 2022 12:12 am

Le Baron wrote:I wouldn't put too much store in that sort of thing. Nit-picking like this by natives (of any language) is liable to make anyone feel they sound absolutely useless and it's often exaggerated. When I lived in France after being in Belgium people just seemed to be defaulting to the tired stereotype that Belgians all have a harsh 'r' and that I'd 'picked it up'. When in fact I'd just copied my mother's pronunciation which wasn't even harsh. And truth be told I simply ended up with a hybrid sound from moving about and being among different speakers. I do use the uvular trill on some words. This exists in Dutch as well (alongside a fricative and weak rolled 'r'), but I don't even use a fricative 'r' in Dutch I follow the Belgian standard of a rolled or dental tap (which also exists in the north of the country). Perhaps to differentiate from French.

Sometimes I have the idea of going about in France, specifically northern regions, deliberately using older southern pronunciations with an Spanish/Italienate rolled 'r' and rejecting 'correction' just to annoy everyone.

Even though there are those alterations according to where the r falls, I think most people can get away with a mild fricative 'r'. Underplaying it is less noticeable than overplaying it.


Thanks. I think I just let some of the criticism get to me a bit. Your response has encouraged me to just pronounce it however I'm comfortable. My french acquaintances will just have to deal with it :D
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Carmody
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Re: Le groupe français 2016 - 2019 Les Voyageurs

Postby Carmody » Sun Dec 25, 2022 12:54 am

Fortheo »

I absolutely love that avatar of yours. I do not know how you came by it but it is a treasure.
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