French Pronunciation Differences

Anyone who has attempted to learn how to speak French should know by now that French is one of the most difficult languages in the world. Other than that, it is the one of the most sophisticated, too. Considered as the language of love and romance, so many people are engrossed to learn this language. Each one has his own reason or justification. Some want to learn it just get by a vacation. Some want to learn it because they simply love it. Some want to master and learn French pronounciation.

It is observed that so many people also flunk this subject. The enunciation is different and the way the words are spelled are also different. French is not a phonetic language, just like English. This means that they are not enunciated as they are spelled, as opposed to Spanish, in which every letter in a word’s written form is enunciated. As always, learning French in writing is to really that much helpful in terms of pronunciation. Then problem is that if one has no idea how a language is verbalized, it is also very likely that one does not have any idea what the words mean even if he can read them.

The other thing that can be looked into is that the very people who own the language have different ways of pronouncing them. This is because the way they enunciate is affected by their own local dialects. One will observe that this is very true of France. One should not be surprised the way French is spoken in Southern France sounds different form that of the people from the Northern part.
In line with this known differences, a standard French was created. This is called the Parisian French.

As a general rule of thumb, some consonants are not pronounced if they are found at the end of the word. These consonants are n, d, p, r, s, x, and t. In reality, there are a lot of exceptions to the French enunciation rules. On would really have to practice and listen to find out the differences.
Taking a look at the letter R, the way this is pronounced is almost guttural. Commonly, R is pronounce softly especially in English. The J, on the other hand, sounds like G. This means this should not be confused as the way it is used in the word JAR. The letter J in French sounds like G in GARDEN.

The real G, on the other hand, has no standard enunciation but it is dependent on the following letter or vowel. If the G is followed by A, O, or U, it is pronounced like G in GARDEN. However, if it is followed by E or I, it sounds like G in tongue.

The CH in French is also similar to the SH of English. The GN is pronounced as the Spanish “ñ”. This is why fillet mignon is pronounced fillet “min-yon.” Lastly, the letter H in French is not pronounced if found in the first part of the word.

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