French listening and oral production

[DaveAgain]

Just come across an odd accent, Canadian perhaps?

(skip to 2m24s, chap on the left)

[tastyonions]

Just come across an odd accent, Canadian perhaps?

(skip to 2m24s, chap on the left)

Hehe, that's an easy one: southern France. A Google search shows he's from Palavas-les-Flots, right by Montpellier.

[jackb]

I stumbled on bitesizedfrench.com the other day (https://bitesizefrench.com/daily-quiz/). Everyday there's a short audio clip you can transcribe to test your listening. You can choose from 100%, 70% or 30% of the dialog based on your comfort with the speed or level. It's a little different from dictation to me. Dictation always feel like the speaker is very deliberate and sounds a bit stilted.

You can only get today's audio clip for free, but you can pay for 60 days of unlimited access. It looks like a 'pay what you can' format but the website author suggests $20 (US). I don't think it's worth that much, though.

[Le Baron]

Good video in nice, clear French about the use of Flemish in Belgium. The remarks about how Flemish leans more towards the production style of French interested me. The dropping of final consonants on some words (though you find this in the south of NL), more fluidity between words and the use of 'nen' (een = a/one) to create a 'liaison'. I'm not sure that's the origin of nen, but whatever. Also 'den' rather than 'de', again allowing a 'liaison'. You might want to even speed her up a bit on 1.25x.

Interesting perhaps for those here who also knock about in the Dutch thread; and for French listeners a bit a cultural information about Belgium's other main language.

[tastyonions]

This little video got a few laughs out of me:



There's a nice adjective in there, jusqu'au-boutiste (= hardline, extremist, not to be dissuaded).

[Le Baron]

Another to note for this thread is perhaps: au pied levé (about 1:36 in the video) = at short notice.

[tastyonions]

Interesting video exploring the origin of French banlieues and comparing their fate to that of similar mass-constructed residential agglomerations in other countries:

[jeffers]

Interesting video exploring the origin of French banlieues and comparing their fate to that of similar mass-constructed residential agglomerations in other countries:

I can't watch this right now, but it looks interesting. Also, I've added a new channel to my subscriptions, so thank you!

[DaveAgain]

I just came across a short video that has an early recording of the Parisien accent, made by Ferdinand Brunot in 1912.

Musée de la parole et du geste

Créées par Ferdinand Brunot (voir notice) en juin 1911 à la Sorbonne avec l’aide de l’industriel du phonographe Émile Pathé, les Archives de la parole (voir notice) forment la première collection institutionnelle d’enregistrements sonores en France. Elles constituent par ailleurs la première pierre d’un Institut de phonétique voulu par l’Université de Paris.

http://comitehistoire.bnf.fr/dictionnai ... role-geste

A search of the bnf.fr website brings up more recordings, and publications by Mr Brunot.

[tastyonions]

A nice little discussion of the word dompter and the social nuances of pronunciation: