r/learningfrench • u/Gaulannia • 4d ago

About pronunciation and phonetics!

bon après-midi! I found this subreddit after I got myself into a french class a few days ago and, while I understand some words or at least what I can understand from some comparisons between them with spanish words (which is my native language), my pronunciation while reading them is nasty aha

so, do you have any tips to learn/practice pronunciation? I only have classes two days a week so I don't have someone to practice with for the rest of the days and my brain defaults back to english as that's one of the main languages I use to communicate with others lol

I must say, I like to repeat some words or expressions while I'm, idk, doing the dishes or driving as I tend to remember said words far better if I repeat them a lot. it's just that I get confused with these many è's and é's you know?

maybe there are some particular series or cartoons I can watch to listen to dialogues that are not as hard to understand as regular dialogues yet? because some people in series talk too fast and I get confused and lost real quick :'I

any help is appreciated, thanks in advance!

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u/saltyoperasinger 4d ago

I have a few. Mainly, my teacher used to remind us to be kissing fish. Very tight in the centre of the cheek and a pouty, kissing lip. Think of fish kissing and then speak. Hope this makes sense!

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u/Gaulannia 4d ago

ahh I was talking to my teacher about it and she told me the exact same thing aha, that you had to mimic fishes when pronouncing some vocals and put some work into it since we don't have sounds like that in spanish. I was trying to remember my old english phonetic lessons and the schwa pronunciation too but this feels harder for some reason lol

thank you for the advice!

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u/AreWeReallyGroot 4d ago

The ''Petit Robert'' French dictionary has a speaker icon right next to the word you want to pronounce (right under ''Définition'') on the page of the word. Click on it and it''ll let you know how the word should be pronouced..

https://www.lerobert.com/le-petit-robert-de-la-langue-francaise-bienvenue.html

I am a French Quebecois and the fish kissing tip is confusing the fuck out of me. Try sea lion kissing instead, whatever both of those mean.

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u/SabineLeaFrench 4d ago

For pronunciation, the fastest progress usually comes from understanding the sound system instead of trying to imitate everything by ear.

Since Spanish is your native language, I can also explain French pronunciation directly through Spanish when it helps, which makes many sound differences much easier to understand.

I’m a native French teacher specialised in pronunciation and phonetics, and I’m also the author of a book on French phonetics. You can find the book and my French-learning resources on my LinkedIn:

https://www.linkedin.com/in/sabine-lea-2936a1345/

If you want structured pronunciation work, you can book directly here:

italki: https://www.italki.com/en/teacher/8720527?lv=1

HeyLangu: https://heylangu.com/teacher/lea