How to Improve Your French Accent

Every English speaker can master these 5 French sounds for better comprehensibility!

Why do students think French is hard? These memes shed a little insight:

both memes from https://www.facebook.com/thelingwist

It’s true! Applying English (or Spanish, or other languages) pronunciation and spelling rules to French will result in an incomprehensible accent. This makes French pronunciation non-intuitive for beginners and I believe this is a huge contributing factor to the reputation that French is hard to learn.

The good news is, French learners can develop a good accent and they can learn to pronounce written French words correctly (at least, most of the time!). The key is to learn, listen, and practice the new pronunciation rules as you learn vocabulary - as opposed to applying the English rules you learned in kindergarten to French.

These are five commonly mispronounced sounds that every English speaker can actually learn to pronounce correctly!

1. Nasal Vowels

This is a big differentiator between having a good and a terrible accent. Every English speaker can pronounce nasal vowels correctly, with a little care and attention.

Try saying the English prefix ‘un’. Say it several times and feel how your tongue touches the roof of your mouth at the end of the /n/. That’s English.

“Every English speaker can make these sounds correctly; you just have to be attentive to French pronunciation patterns!”

Now try the French way – keep your tongue down and your mouth open. /unh/ You must practice this so when you’re counting or saying words like ‘un stylo’, you say the ‘un’ in French. If your tongue touches the roof of your mouth, you now have a bad English accent.

The same is true for the French word ‘bonjour’. /ban-JOOR/ (with your tongue closing off the /n/ sound and a hard English /r/ - this makes you sound bad from the first word you say.

Keep your tongue down and soften that /n/. Say /bonh-joor/ with a nasal /n/ and very light /r/ at the end. See how much better that sounds?

You must practice new words aloud until the French way ‘feels’ right.

2. The letter ‘i’

The letter ‘i’ in French usually makes the /ee/ sound. This is tricky for English speakers, and even more so when the word is a cognate.

Practice words like:

• six /sees/

• fille /fee-yuh/

• different /dee-fer-ohn/

• timide /tee-meed/

• stricte /streekt/

• difficile /dee-fee-seel/

until you are saying them correctly. Don’t transfer your English pronunciation habits; ‘difficile’ is not pronounced /dih-fih-seel/ (like English), it’s /dee-fee-seel/. Maintaining a good /ee/ sound will make you sound so much better.

3. The French /QU/ sound

In kindergarten, you learned that ‘qu’ makes a /kw/ sound. Think of words like “queen” “quilt” and “quit”.

In French, it’s a /k/ sound.

• qui /key

• qu’est-ce que /kess kuh/

• quitte /keet/

A big mistake I hear is students transferring their English pronunciation and saying something /kwih/ or /kwee/ for ‘qui’. Every English speaker can make this sound correctly; you just have to be attentive to French pronunciation patterns.

4. Silent last letters

You must train yourself to not pronounce the last letter in words like:

• pas

• très

• deux

• amusant

• grand

• suis

Again, this is something every English speaker can do. It takes practice and attention. If you are pronouncing the last letter, it shows me you did not practice enough or your did not practice effectively.

5. The French /u/ sound

This one is tricky, but you can do it.

There are two ‘u’ sounds in French. When u is with another letter, it’s pronounced like the English /u/.

Examples:

• tous /tooh/

• sous /sooh/

• vous /vooh/

• beaucoup /boh-kooh/

etc. This part is easy.

When the u is by itself in French, it’s a bit different. It’s called a ‘back rounded vowel’ because it’s pronounced in the back of your mouth near your throat, with round lips.

OK. try saying the English sound ‘ooh’. Say it several times and feel where the sound is being produced. You should feel vibration or buzzing near your lips, in the front of your mouth. The English /oo/ sound is a front, rounded vowel.

Now say the English sound /ee/. As you say it, notice where it’s being produced. Do you feel it in the back of your mouth by your throat? This is a back unrounded vowel.

The French /u/ takes an element from both of these English vowels.

First say /ee/. Feel it in the back of your throat.

Now, as you’re saying /ee/, make your lips round. This is the French /u/. It kind of sounds like a little alien noise. But, that’s French.

Try it on these words:

• tu

• sur

• vu

• bu

• mule

• pu

In fact, there’s a famous French tongue twister:

La roue sur la rue roule, et la rue sous la roue reste. (The wheel on the road rolls, and the street under the wheel is still).

Listen to a French speaker pronounce this. Can you imitate her pronunciation? Practice makes perfect!

How do you improve your students’ pronunciation? Share in the chat!