By learning which written letters
and combinations of written letters give which sounds in French,
you will be able to look at a new
word, divide it into syllables, and decide how to pronounce it.
Remember that vowel sounds in French
are pure sounds and are not diphthongized as they are
in English. A diphthong is
a vowel sound that wavers some at is it pronounced. For example,
in English when we say the word
"Kay," we tend to draw the word out and we let our voice
waver. In French, we set
our mouth to produce the vowel, the air passes through (unobstructed
--the definition of a vowel) and
no part of our mouth moves, unlike the way we make
vowel sounds in English. Listen
to the word Kay . Now listen to the
pure vowel sound with
no diphthong in the French word quai
. Note the lack of any kind of waver in the pronunciation
of the French quai
as opposed to the diphthongized American Kay
.
To help avoid the tendancy to pronounce French
vowels as diphthongs, you should do two things.
You should, of course, try to keep you mouth
from moving when producing the vowel, and
you should try shortening the length of
your vowels. The shorter time you hold the sound,
the less chance there will be for you to produce
a diphthong.
You will now study which written letters and combinations
of written letters give which vowel
sounds. You will also learn the phonetic
symbol for the sound. A phonetic symbol is simply
a way to represent the sound in writing.
For example, the written letters "ou" represent a
certain sound which is represented by the phonetic
symbol /u/ .
We will study the vowel sounds by groups so that
you can compare and contrast sounds
which to you as an American may not sound different.
The Group /Y/ /U/ /Ø/
We will study these three sounds together, since to the American ear
there seems not to be much
difference between them.