One of the first pronunciation difficulties a student encounters when learning French is that several written consonants are actually “silent”, particularly at the end of words. So, for example, the words beautiful and hot they actually rhyme in French, although the second of these ends in a written “d” while the first does not end in any written consonant.
But there is an additional difficulty in mastering the pronunciation of the French consonants. Even when actually pronounced, several consonant sounds that you initially expect to be the “same sound” as their English counterpart are, in fact, subtly different in French. You would be forgiven for thinking that, say, a “d” sound is a “d” sound in any language, so that whenever it is pronounced first, a “d” sound in French is the same as a “d” sound. in English. Unfortunately, this is not the case, and in fact, assuming this is the case can lead to communication difficulties.
Both English and French (and several other languages) share several consonants, called it stops, which come in pairs: “p”/”b”, “t”/”d” and “k”/”g”. These consonants are called stops because when you pronounce them… you stop… the air flowing through the mouth (with the lips in the case of the first pair, and with part of the tongue against the roof of the mouth in the second and third pairs). The two stops that make up each pair (for example, “p” vs. “b”) differ in terms of vocal fold vibration: generally speaking, the first of each pair is “voiceless” (lack of vocal fold vibration). vowels) while the second is “voiced”. (having vibration of the vocal cords). As a side note, we should mention that there are potentially other pairs of stops in all languages, but these are common to French and English.
So far so good: the vague descriptions of these six consonants just given apply to both English and French. But the devil is in the details. For reasons we’ll look at in a minute, an English speaker’s voiceless plosives are a bit “deafer” than a Francophone’s, while a Francophone’s voiceless plosives are a bit “louder”.
When a French speaker pronounces their version of these consonants, their behavior follows the above description more or less as you would expect. Just as they bring their lips together to make a “p” sound, more or less simultaneously their vocal cords stop vibrating. And likewise, when they open their lips again, the vocal cords begin to vibrate at about the same time (provided, of course, there is a subsequent sound, such as a vowel, that forces them to vibrate!). Conversely, when a French person utters a “b” sound (the “voice” counterpart of the “p” sound, remember) his goal is to keep the vocal cords vibrating throughout the process. So when applied to the stops of a French speaker, “voiced” and “voiceless” really describe whether or not there is vibration of the vocal folds while the sound or airflow actually stops.
On the other hand, the behavior of a native English speaker is slightly different. When they utter a “p” sound, not only do their vocal cords stop vibrating while their lips are together, but when the lips part again and air is “released,” the native English speaker typically “forces” a small extra breath of air Put out to dry This “puff of air” is often referred to as suction and has the effect of delaying the onset of vibration of the vocal folds due to the increased pressure of the air flowing through the larynx. On the other hand, when an English speaker pronounces a so-called “voiced” stop as a “b”, it actually still allows the vocal folds to stop vibrating while the lips are closed, but instead differs from the voiceless stop by preventing aspiration. .
(The eagle-eyed will note that the descriptions we give here apply specifically to stops at the beginning of a syllable. We focus here on voicing at the beginning of a syllable, but of course there are other differences in the pronunciation of these stops between French and English.)
Now look at these descriptions again closely: We said that in a French “p” sound, the vocal cords stop vibrating while the lips are closed. And in an English “b” sound, the vocal cords also stop vibrating. What this means is that the “b” sound in English is actually very similar to the “p” sound in French! A similar process is applied to the other “t”/”d” and “k”/”g” pairs, so that in many cases, an English “d” is actually similar to a French “t” and a ” g” English. similar to a French “k”. Needless to say, this is a pronunciation detail that can lead to confusion!
So what can you do in practice to pronounce these stops in a way that avoids confusion for a French speaker? Fortunately, we have a starting point in English. It turns out that after an “s” sound at the beginning of an English word (as in sport, streetok, skate/schbrilliant etc), “p”, “t” and “k” are much more similar to their French counterparts. So to say the French word doorimagine saying the word in english sport, but “cut” the “s” sound at the beginning. (Also listen carefully how you say English sport so portand note the aspiration or “strong puff of air” that accompanies the “p” of port but not of sport.)
Pronouncing “b”, “d” and “g” in French is a bit more difficult for English speakers and can take some getting used to. Remember that a French speaker deliberately tries to keep the vocal cords vibrating during these sounds. He practices making these sounds and trying to “force” some extra air into his mouth while “holding” the sound at the same time. Another technique is to imagine pronouncing them as “mb”, “nd” and “ng”, and then “cutting” the “m” or “n”.
It takes some practice, but paying attention to details like the above can greatly improve your French pronunciation and will make your speech more understandable to a French speaker, and being aware of these differences will likely improve your understanding of spoken French.
