1. French Pronunciation GUIDE

2.  I can say ‘r’ and ‘u’ in French.  I know, can identify and can say vowel sounds in French.  I know which letters to pronounce and which letters to not pronounce.

3. Tricky Sounds

4. r One of the more difficult sounds for non-native speakers remains the French ‘r’. This gargling sound is not produced with your tongue, but with your throat. To make sure that you are not tempted to use your tongue to produce the ‘r’ sound, place the tip of a pen/pencil at the tip of your tongue (to keep it steady) while you try to produce the French ‘r’. Do not stick your tongue out; just leave it inside your mouth. The pencil will make sure that you won’t try to use your tongue to produce the (English) r sound. The tip of your tongue should touch your lower front teeth.

5. u Another tricky sound is the ‘u’ from the word ‘tu’ or ‘une’. Many English speakers tend to pronounce the ‘u’ as ‘oo’ like in book because the former sound does not exist in English. Your tongue position is central to the correct pronunciation of ‘tu’. In fact, you need to place your tongue where you would place it to pronounce the English ‘ee’ (as in free) of the French ‘i’ (as in ‘Paris’). http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=x4XFrRnCOvM&list=UU2L9w7ozDeUl1w5ZjUPC OQA&index=14&feature=plcp

6. I can say ‘r’ and ‘u’ in French.  I know, can identify and can say vowel sounds in French.  I know which letters to pronounce and which letters to not pronounce.

7. VOWEL SOUNDS

8. a chat

9. ai lait

10. au chateau

11. an anglais

12. e pomme

13. ei neige

14. eu Europe

15. en vendre

16. i Italie

17. in lapin

18. o Europe

19. oi trois

20. ou genou

21. on camion

22. oui ui

23. universe un

24. A AAIAUAN E EEIEUEN I I- O OOIOUON U UUI-UN

25. I can say ‘r’ and ‘u’ in French. I know, can identify and can say vowel sounds in French.  I know which letters to pronounce and which letters to not pronounce.

26. Which letters do we pronounce and which ones not? Unfortunately, French is not a phonetic language, so there is no transparent sound- writing relationship. This makes it hard to pronounce written text in French, as you don’t always know how to pronounce each sound. On top of that, in French there are many letters which you should not pronounce at all.

27. There are three categories of silent letters in French. E muet Final consonants H muet and aspiré

28. E muet A.In the nine single syllable words with one consonant ce, de, je, le, me, ne, que, se, te B.At the end of a word, possibly followed by other silent letters homme femmes parlent C.In the non-final syllable of a word, after a consonant sound and before one of the following: 1. single consonant sound devoirs recherche logement 2. consonant + liquid consonant° chevronné secrétaire replacer D.Miscellaneous 1. The re- prefix in front of ssre- prefix ressortir ressource 2.These three wordsdessous dessus dehors

29. Final Cononants The basic rule of French pronunciation for final consonants is that the final consonant is not pronounced, but there are many exceptions The letters B, C, F, K, L, Q, and R are usually pronounced at the end of a word. TOP Tip: Since B, K, and Q are rare as final consonants, some people find it helpful to use the word CaReFuL to remember the most common of the usually pronounced final consonants. The other French consonants are usually silent at the end of a word, with some exceptions. TOP Tip: many exceptions are proper names or words borrowed from other languages. The letters M and N are usually silent, but remember that they cause the vowel preceding them to be nasal.

30. H The letter H is always silent in French. However, there are two different kinds of H's: H muet and H aspiré. The type of H at the beginning of the word lets you know whether to make contractions and pronounce liaisons with that word. To find out whether the H in a particular word is muet or aspiré, check a good French dictionary. There will be an asterisk or some other symbol to distinguish the two kinds of H's.H muetH aspiréFrench dictionary

31. I can say ‘r’ and ‘u’ in French. I know, can identify and can say vowel sounds in French. I know which letters to pronounce and which letters to not pronounce.

32. Now let’s put you to the test…

33. http://www.austincc.edu/hguillor/frphonetics/fr ameset.html http://www.austincc.edu/hguillor/frphonetics/fr ameset.html

34. Tongue Twisters