Don't stress in French!

French sounding English? Don't stress!

Who is this person, Marie, that she keeps referring to? I wondered. Until I realised that, as an English speaker, she was using the odd French word, but distorting the pronunciation by using characteristically English stressed syllables. 

   In order to be understood in French it can be important to realise that stressed syllables are almost inexistant in spoken French. This English lady was , in fact, referring to the town hall – la Mairie. But she was doing the English thing of crushing the first vowel, and stressing the second syllable, so that it sounded like the girl's name Marie – muhREE.

   As an English teacher in the French education system, I had fun explaining to my pupils that they needed to master one vowel sound in English: uh. I would explain to them that when they came across a word in English that looked just like a French word, all they had to do with the vowels was to replace them with “uh” and they'd probably get the pronunciation right.

   Take, for example the word “cinéma”. The French pronounce three distinct vowel sounds : see-nay-mah. (More or less....). However the English word “cinema” comes out: sin-uh-muh.

Then I had to explain to them the joys of stressed syllables, and how they can make all the difference to the meaning of the word, sometimes the difference between a verb and a noun.

“I refuse to put the refuse in the dust-bin.”

• re-FUSE and REFF-use.

Other languages use the stressed syllable, as I discovered to my joy when I was learning Brazilian Portuguese. But that is another story.

G.B. Shaw said that good advice is rarely given, and never taken. In spite of that, here is some advice to get you sounding French.

  Do not lapse into the unhealthy habit of speaking Franglais. The chances are that any French words you throw into an English sentence will be pronounced in an English way.      According to studies  by psycho-linguistic experts, if you pronounce a word in a certain way more than 250 times, it will get stuck in your brain and you will always pronounce it that way. Always and forever.

You have been warned.

   If you need to talk about the town hall, call it “the town hall”, rather than confusing your interlocutor. And, of course, moving towards the critical level of 250 repetitions. Interestingly, la mairie actually sounds more like Mary than Marie.

   Franglais induces a form of intellectual laziness. You may say a few words in French to an English speaker, but you know that you can lapse back into English when you've run out of French vocabulary. 

   The most effective learning takes place when you break out in cold sweats trying to say something in French because your interlocutor doesn't understand English.That is why total immersion is so effective. You have to develop linguistic reflexes, and you know the old expression: necessity is the mother of.....panic. Sometimes.

   Oh – and understand and accept that pronouncing foreign words correctly actually feels kind of dumb and silly when you start learning a new language. That's why we lapse back into English pronunciation so often. We rush back into our comfort zones.

Not good.

Accept feeling silly, because you won't sound silly, and you will increase your chances of being understood. 

Just get over it, ok?

And enjoy being in the beautiful Toulouse area.