50
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Where did French's silent ending consonants come from?
This is a huge question. If someone has the time to give a more thorough overview, I invite them to, but here's a quick set of points to consider.
Most of these end consonants are no mystery: they ...
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24
votes
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Quelle est la règle pour utiliser « mon » avec des noms féminins ?
La règle :
Quand le déterminant possessif ma, ta et sa se trouve devant un mot féminin qui commence par un son voyelle, on emploie mon, ton et son. Ceci pour éviter d'avoir à prononcer deux voyelles à ...
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23
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How at normal speed, is "on en a un en haut, hein?" pronounced by natives?
On en a un en haut, hein ? is a reasonable and common French sentence. It doesn't surprise French ears at all. There are only mandatory (the first two) or forbidden liaisons here so no variants to ...
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20
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What exactly do the French diacritics denote? And can they be implied/expelled?
Diacritics are part of French orthography. To take one example, "dû" is the past participle of "devoir". If you remove the circumflex, it becomes "du", the contraction of "de" + "le".
Different ...
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Where did French's silent ending consonants come from?
In addition to Luke's answer, here are some comments about each of your examples:
Temps was often written tems, tens or even tans in Old French. When French spelling was standardized, the variant ...
- 154k
19
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Is the second 'T' silent in "petites" ?
The man actually pronounces the second t. Even though it is not as clear as the sounds from the beginning of the word, I distinctly hear it. If you play the video at half-speed, you can hear it being ...
- 486
19
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When and where is "oui" read /wei/?
Approval is often expressed with ouais (pronounced /wɛ/, sometimes /we/) instead of oui (/wi/) in relaxed spoken French. The difference is similar to using yep vs yes.
A final /j/ might be heard in ...
- 154k
19
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Prononciation "bonshommes"
Bonhomme a une grammaire particulière car formé par agglutination d'un adjectif et un nom commun. Contrairement à bonheur qui suit le même schéma (bon + heur=chance, destin), le nom commun bonhomme ...
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18
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Prononciation en français des mots d'origine anglaise
Il n'y a pas de règle absolue, c'est souvent l'usage qui dicte la prononciation des mots étrangers, comme celle des mots français d'ailleurs...
Les mots comme python, Apache, Oracle, Android (androïde)...
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17
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When and where is "oui" read /wei/?
"Oui" is always pronounced /wi/
"Ouais" is vey common in French, it is slang for "Oui" like "Yeah" is slang for "Yes".
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I do not understand the pronunciation of "et notre petit dernier"
In everyday speech, notre reduces most of the time to /nɔt/ when the following word begins with a consonant.
Petit has a e-muet/schwa (/ə/) in its initial syllable which is notoriously unstable and ...
- 10k
16
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What exactly do the French diacritics denote? And can they be implied/expelled?
For reference, the usual diacritics are as follows.
Accent aigu: é
Pronunciation: Uniformly causes the vowel to be pronounced [e] (as in English "may").
There are some rare exceptions where it's ...
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15
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Does French have the English "short i" vowel?
No, standard French does not have the vowel /ɪ/ (near-close front unrounded vowel), which is the English “short i”. The vowel which is normally written with the letter I in French is a close front ...
15
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Prononciation : "aidée" contre "aidé"
Il y a une variation régionale, oui.
Historiquement, les séquences voyelles + schwa en fin de mot ont donné naissance à des voyelles longues quand ces schwas finaux ont cessé d'être prononcé. Cette ...
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15
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Proper Middle French c. 1450 pronunciation for the "Le Roy Engloys" song
The most complete freely accessible source for the dating and chronology of sound changes in French is in my opinion the histolf site of the Université Libre de Bruxelles, and especially its pages on ...
- 10k
14
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How is /a/ pronounced before n/m in French?
The widespread pronunciation is [pano] with no nasalisation. You might hear [panɔ] in eastern France, but this is unrelated to your question.
A non native speaker might hear a slight kind of ...
- 154k
14
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Aren't all schwas sounded like /ø/?
Depending on the dialect of the speaker, schwa might be realised as [əʷ], [œ] or [ø].
Whatever this realisation might be, it's still its own phoneme, since it has a very different behaviour from /ø/:
...
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14
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Why is the second S silent in "Sens dessus dessous"?
It seems that the reason for this unique pronunciation would be the ancient form of the word "sens"; this is suggested by the Wiktionnaire;
« sens » dans cette locution vient de « c’en » et il est ...
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14
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Is there a difference in pronunciation for un, a, à, as and et, es and est?
Note: It is difficult to avoid using IPA to describe pronunciation. English vowels are absolutely not equivalent to French ones, so comparisons in dictionaries (e.g. "like the a in angel") are often ...
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14
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Does the French language have an "oy" sound?
There are several words of foreign origin used in French that contain the /ɔj/ diphtong, including barzoï, boy-scout, boycotter, cow-boy, foil, goy, joystick, spoiler, and monoï.
In addition, there is ...
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13
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Prononciation du "d" final dans le mot quand
Pour compléter la réponse de Destal :
Le « d » final de « quand » n'est jamais prononcé « d » mais il est prononcé « t » quand « quand » est suivi d'un mot commençant par une voyelle et que la liaison ...
- 154k
13
votes
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Is there any hidden 'W' sound after 'comment' in : Comment est-elle?
In both the video and Google Translate's pronunciation, I think I understand what you're hearing. It seems to be an implicit glide between the /ɑ̃/ and the /ɛ/ simply as a function of the first being ...
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12
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Why is there no cedilla on the c in porcelaine ?
C can be pronounced [k] or [s].
C is pronounced [k] before a, o, u, or any consonant (except h). Call this the "hard" C.
calembour cour cul croquer
C is pronounced [s] before e, i, y. Call this ...
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12
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Prétéqueuseuteu
Ce n'est pas du patois, c'est vraiment comme dit le texte (« comme eût prononcé la cuisinière de mon grand-père ») un élément de prononciation.
Les enfants qui ne savent pas encore bien parler, et ...
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12
votes
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Prononciation de "2h41"
Parce qu'il s'agit en fait de minutes :
deux heures quarante-et-une [minutes]
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Does French have the English "short i" vowel?
The French generally spoken in France does not have [ɪ] either phonemically or phonetically, and to my knowledge no variety of French would use it for the first vowel in « s'il vous plait » (though ...
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12
votes
Do I have to learn /o/ or /ɔ/ separately?
A contrast between close-mid /o/ and open-mid /ɔ/ is present in many varieties of French. But the distribution of the two sounds varies between accents. Some accents have distinctions in vowel length ...
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12
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How to pronounce correctly [b] and [p]? As well [t]/[d] and [k]/[g]
The distinction between those sets of consonants isn't really in the configuration of the speech organs, but in the timing of the vocal folds' (lack of) vibration.
Consonants such as /p, b, t, d, k ...
- 10k
12
votes
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Prononciation "bonshommes"
On dit bonZhomme (comme dans zèbre).
Il n'y a pas de grammaire particulière, c'est juste un adjectif+nom devenu nom commun ce qui explique aussi l’orthographe: l'adjectif et le nom sont au pluriel ...
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