Pronunciation: Dangerous liaisons or a few tips on sounding French and eventually understanding the French....

If you want to blend in the Hexagon (for the geometrically challenged, it’s France), try these few tips :

·        Try to speak French with an exaggerated/accentuated French accent/ same as the one you take when speaking English – type Allo allo.

·        Sounding of the last consonant

Le port (sound [por])

La porte (sound [por])

Sound the” t” when there is an “e” afterwards

·        Les Liaisons dangeureuses: one of the main complaints of students of French is that spoken French sounds like a long ohn ohn ohn without any clue when a word starts or ends. In French you need to flow, unlike British English where the words are clipped. The way to flow is to blend the words together.

·        Cutting in syllables :

In English : Conf/ort/able + stress on Conf

In French : Con/ for/ table + stress on Table.

If a French person breaks up a French word into syllables according to English rule, he/she will sound English

To make a ‘liaison’, you need :

·        The next word to start with a vowel or h(some h)

·        The preceding word to end with a  consonant

DON’T sound the end consonant. Drag it to the next word.

DO NOT RUSH!!!!!

Je suis zitalien

Elle est  titalienne

Il est tanglais

Il est trop panglais

Il est très zanglais

So “zanglais”, “tanglais”, “panglais”, are the same word! The trick is to make all the liaisons when speaking ( there are 2 kinds, compulsory & optional) so that when hearing one, you can decrypt/decipher it.

 If you want to have a go at cracking the French Pronunciation, why not try one of the Singing in French Workshops organised by Mosaic Languages in Wimbledon